Austin Sound

“It’s a false alarm, We heard the ringing ‘cause it’s been so long,” opens Andrew Kenny gently on the debut of his new band, the Wooden Birds. Voice trilling against the steady strum and thump of an acoustic guitar, there is some truth to the lyric. After the continued extended hiatus of American Analog Set, Kenny planted in New York and hooked up for some admirable collaborations with everyone from the Album Leaf and Her Space Holiday, to Broken Social Scene, not to mention his stint on bass for David Wingo’s excellent Ola Podrida. Having now returned to Austin, however, it seems Kenny has taken to familiar ground sonically as well. Fans of American Analog Set will find a lot to love with Magnolia, with Wooden Birds coming off much like Kenny’s former outfit but more stripped down. While that familiarity is comforting, it’s also somewhat disappointing in that one would have hoped that Kenny would have expanded his palate a bit more and produced something more surprising and unexpected with his return to songwriting.

That’s not to say that Magnolia isn’t a good record, just that Kenny offers us little that is new and even less in variation. The sparse arrangements for the songs work well with his hushed, calming vocals, yet they also tend to all run together and sound so similar at times that their effect is dulled in the repetition. That may be part of Kenny’s intent, as lyrically he drifts as dire as ever with twisted narratives and glimpses of broken love and psyches that are exaggerated by the soothing lullaby tones. “The Other One” beautifully unfolds the opening “doo doo doo” hum to a scene inside a mental hospital: “Baby it’s a hospital though they call it something more made up, But there ain’t any arguing over which side the door locks from.” The song’s gloss of repression serves as an appropriate metaphor for Kenny’s aesthetic - lulling and seemingly innocuous, but covering much darker demons.

“Hailey” and “Quit You Once” are both lyrically short, but develop their disillusioned love affairs slowly over soft chants and light guitar. That heartbreak, or more properly, the bitter and resigned reflections on battered relationships, flows throughout Magnolia, sometimes assigning fault, sometimes just accepting the fallout. The most brutal is undoubtedly “Choke,” with Kenny crooning at his most tender “I hope you choke, I hope you choke.” The best of these fatalistically flawed affairs, however, belongs to “Seven Seventeen,” which opens on the uncomfortable note “She was seven when I was seventeen, And no one takes us seriously.” The song isn’t nearly as twisted as it sounds, though Kenny’s approach to exploring the age gap between two (now older) lovers couldn’t be more disturbing. But that’s entirely the point of the song – grown and reunited, there is something taboo in the ten year age difference that wouldn’t necessarily exist as adults, but because of the characters’ previous childhood acquaintance, can’t quite be shaken. Leslie Sisson strikes the perfect tone in laying down the frustration of her childhood crush still percolating years later: “But you still see this fucked up kid, and the X’s on my wrists.”

Sisson also shines with her harmonies on “Anna Paula,” and her contributions throughout add some much welcome texture to some otherwise flaccid tunes. Despite some good songs – especially the inclusion of “Hometown Fantasy,” which was previously recorded for Kenny’s 2003 solo split album with Ben Gibbard, Home: Volume 5 - Magnolia’s sound becomes much too predictable and dry even by its midpoint, and even more so with repeated listens. So while it’s great to have Kenny both back in Austin and writing again, Magnolia is in many respects a “false alarm.” Hopefully Kenny will begin to try out some new, more adventurous directions with Wooden Birds, because he’s a much better artist and songwriter than Magnolia presents. It’s a welcome return for the group’s debut, but it will be more interesting to see where he takes them next.

Mp3 from Magnolia:
Sugar

Websites:
www.thewoodenbirds.com
Myspace