They first came together in 2004, when Bright Eyes and M.
Ward toured with Jim James of My Morning Jacket. It’s taken the three
busy singer/songwriters, along with indie über-producer Mike
Mogis, five years to finish off Monsters of Folk’s self-titled debut
album and, as expected from three very idiosyncratic frontmen,
Monsters of Folk is a real hodgepodge, and the end result sounds
as labored as its extended time frame suggests.
To their credit, the four Monsters play everything on the
album—no hired guns, no stunt vocalists—and they
collectively split the songwriting, although it’s easy to tell who
wrote what. Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst acquits himself with the most
success; “Ahead of the Curve” is one of the finest things he’s done in
recent years, and “Map of the World” is good enough to remind us why it
was so disappointing when he yielded several slots on his last Mystic
Valley Band record to his bandmates.
Despite this year’s disappointing Hold Time, M. Ward is
masterful at weaving delicate trifles into something more substantial,
and there are trifles aplenty on Monsters—like the languid
“Slow Down Jo” and the fake rockabilly of “Whole Lotta
Losin'”—but the only thing that transcends novelty is the
melancholy “The Sandman, the Brakeman, and Me.”
That leaves James, who opens the record with the downright awful
“Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F),” a fake funk-lite hymn with unimaginably
trite lyrics: “If your love’s still around, why do we suffer?” The
strained sing-along of “The Right Place” is phony beyond belief, and
the rock crunch of “Losin’ Yo’ Head” becomes predictable after the
third bar. “Magic Marker” actually contains the lyrics “How many licks
does it take to get…?/Taste and see!” James has always written shitty
lyrics, but as evidenced by My Morning Jacket’s puzzlingly bad last
effort, Evil Urges, he’s lost grip of his array of other
talents.
The strength of Oberst and Ward’s work is that they have always
known their limitations, but it’s a quality they do not share with
James, who goes for broke with every move. It’s a laudable intent, but
a supergroup should never allow one member to hog the spotlight, and
for all the talent that Oberst and Ward possess, they can’t cover up
James’ weaknesses.
Yet another critic that doesn’t get this one basic premise: someone not liking something, does not make it bad. But as with every Mercury review, when they say it’s bad you know it’s worth checking out. When they rave about it, you check it out and are always let down. In that way, they are still a reliable coolness barometer, but opposite from the way that they intend.
I’ve been listening to the album for a few weeks now, and I don’t find this review to be very accurate. It seems like The Mercury wrote this before it actually listened to the CD, as the review is what many of us expected to get from this group. Luckily, we were happily surprised. Try listening next time, Lannamann.
Positive reviews from Paste, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and everyone I’ve talked to. It’s not an awesome CD, but it’s very good.
Reading this review hurt my buns a little bit. It almost ruined my day. And then I saw them last night… Ned needs to lighten up a bit. He either thinks MOF is shit cause he has no sense of humor and takes life way too seriously or he just couldn’t manage to suspend his cynicism before seeing them live, the way these tunes were meant to be heard. They killed it last night. I hope you got to see the show Ned!