DeVotchKa's made some progress since starting out as a backing band for drunken Denver burlesque shows.
With EPs, LPs, a Grammy Award nomination (2006, Best Soundtrack for "Little Miss Sunshine") and worldwide tours, 2008 is looking even brighter for the melancholy gypsy folk-rockers.
Preceding a summer tour and appearance at Coachella, the band completed "A Mad & Faithful Telling," their sixth studio release.
In this release, DeVotchKa retains and embraces the indie-mariachi sound of previous efforts. "Head Honcho" and "Undone" are acoustic-heavy, blast-from-the-past tunes that are great for falling asleep to. The yearning and ethereal vocals of band-leader Nick Urata remain intact as the highlight of the listening experience.
But DeVotchKa expands outside its own self-created genre as well, proving its creative diversity and musical chops. The opening track, "Basso Profundo," sets the tone for "Faithful Telling" and may be the best song released by any band this year. The poetic chorus of "All the world is for the taking/Just forget the hearts you're breaking/Is this love that you are making/or is it a deal?" once again show off Urata's lyrical abilities. They're are backed up by louder, more confident percussion and booming bass from stand-up bassist and sousaphonist Jeanie Schroder. Tom Hagerman's immaculate gypsy jazz-violin skills solidifies "Basso Profundo" as an eclectic masterpiece of noise.
"The Clockwise Witness" is instrumentally experimental, expanding and contracting like a helium balloon. Buried in the middle of the CD, "Transliterator" is the hidden gem on "Faithful Telling." Both imaginative and assertive, Urata's cosmic falsetto gets earthy and rough to go with indie-pop keyboards and impressively frenzied stickwork by drummer Shawn King.
But most importantly, DeVotchKa doesn't lose the intangible, vague, unique quality that made them so appealing in past efforts. It's almost a self-conscious enlightenment: The band knows the true meaning of art is pure self-expression, and its musical goal remains to honestly convey their emotions to the audience, no matter how delicate or capricious.
"SuperMeloDrama," the band's first recording, sounds like a hopeless romantic who's lost another true love, as is "Faithful Telling" — but the latter will tell you that you walked all over him instead of just pining away.
It's almost like the band wrote in a journal, worked out its deep inner thoughts on paper, then asked its fans for advice in LP form. It never needed to change, but growing a backbone is definitely never a bad thing. DeVotchKa is one of the few artists in popular music today, and "Faithful Telling" is a subtle masterpiece.
Reach the reporter at: trabens@asu.edu.
