Austin Sound

Chris Brecht and Dead Flowers second album and follow-up to 2008’s
The Great Ride, leads the listener through a musty corridor with a flashlight, opens a door and flips a switch to reveal stained floral curtains and yellowing lampshades. Slowly, with every listen, the curtains swish and the lampshades crack revealing the deliberate and delicate lace-like arrangements of the room: the Wurlitzer’s exacting pulse, the pedal steel’s reckless extension, the vocals’ penetrating reverberations. The assumption of what one thinks Motel is shrivels and falls off, and a song called “Living Twice as Hard” isn’t just a cliché for the grief and befalls of reckless living. Dead Flower Motel betters with each listen, revealing unseen turns and crevices. But like all motels, it is embedded with a sense of impermanence and the moments of revelation are constantly fleeting too fast.

Motel opens with “Hollywood,” a measured waltz that slowly lets go of the reins. Brecht’s vocal cords crumble with the wear of a Will Johnson as he beams out like he’s peeling out of the driveway of the past: “…wouldn’t do it again if I could!” The song’s statement is perfected by the delicately cavernous foundation of Ricky Ray Jackson’s (Phosphorescent, The Happen-Ins, Brothers and Sisters, Hayes Carll) pedal steel. The building “Blue Thunder” emerges as a slow-tempo stunner. Brecht’s vocals are speckled with an Alec Ounsworth-y pubescent yip-yaw. As Matt Mollica’s (Deadman) piano climbs, Brecht’s voice peels away exposing its imperfection. It’s better for it.

“Wish You” playfully stomps with a guitar riff adept to Wilco’s A.M., but really dazzles when the riff breaks open and continues into something much more serious. It is a dichotomy of being one thing on the surface and yet being all this other stuff in the inside, like Elvis Presley or one of those clown guns loaded with flowers. Or like a motel. The insides come out after long. “Not Where You Are” is a surprising and smart melding of musical genres. John Michael Schoepf bops with a bass line that’s a dead ringer of a 50’s girl group and yet the song somehow pulls off preachy-style Bob Dylan with Brecht flipping buses of words in a decisive drawl.

“Living Twice As Hard” is an anthem for dead flower motels everywhere as it bellies up and belts out with layered vocals causing the listener to sing along. Then something happens. “Streetlight” blooms as all the album’s elements come together. The listener looks around and realizes this Motel room is full of the people who have been here before; the band’s ornate orchestrations are tactile. The soft brush of Falcon Valdez’ drums frames the weeping steel as Scott Davis plucks the most forlorn banjo one could ever imagine. Brecht’s harmonica finally scrapes the space behind the music and pleads to be heard, and then when it leaves after just a few seconds, everything is suddenly bettered by the memory of its razor-and-knife drowning dance.

Dead Flower Motel feels a bit like the A.M. version of Jeff Tweedy standing in a motel room looking out the window not knowing that all the while A Ghost is Born is coming. Brecht finds some good here; he knows it is where he is. But Motel teases the listener by splitting just shy of what the listener hopes for at its best moments. There is no doubt that the music could be there one day. And for an album filled with such longing and backed by such talent, Chris Brecht and Dead Flowers obviously get it, they just don’t stay there long enough.

Websites:
http://chrisbrecht.com
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