BETH ORTON: COMFORT OF STRANGERS (2005)
1) Worms; 2) Countenance; 3)
Heartland Truckstop; 4) Rectify; 5) Comfort Of Strangers; 6) Shadow Of A Doubt;
7) Conceived; 8) Absinthe; 9) A Place Inside; 10) Safe In Your Arms; 11)
Shopping Trolley; 12) Feral Children; 13) Heart Of Soul; 14) Pieces Of Sky.
Good God, is this ever boring. On her fourth
(actually, fifth, if you count SuperPinkyMandy,
and you should) album, Orton goes for an even more stripped-down approach —
most of the songs are in trio format, with Jim O'Rourke handling bass duties
and Tim Barnes on percussion, while Beth is doing her latest best to impress us
as a singer, songwriter, guitar player, artistic soul, and gracious human
being. Unfortunately, of all these categories, I can only recommend «gracious
human being» to your attention. If you are in need of a randomly chosen
gracious human being this evening, Beth Orton is as good as any, and maybe even
better than most.
The one major saving grace of these fourteen
songs is that they are all short — only one crosses the four-minute mark, and
some barely go over two. This means that at least your ears will not have
enough time to shrivel, wither, and fall off in protest as the lady moves from
one traditional folk chord sequence to another. She does try to write her own
vocal melodies for the songs, but she still has not mastered the art of the
hook — at best, her «hooks» are softly shouted slogans (ʽHeart Of Soulʼ), and
at worst, she just adds a little touch of singing to her poetry.
Lyrically, as you could guess, there is a lot of suffering going on, completely
inadequate to the lite-melancholic, lulling music that surrounds the vocal
delivery — and the vocal delivery itself is as tepid as usual. The words are
hit-and-miss — some of the imagery is thought-provoking, although it is hard to
lyrically justify an album whose opening lines go "Worms don't dance /
They haven't got the balls" — but in the end, they are about as
uninteresting as the music. Whole songwriting factories have put out billions
of songs on the side effects of the love business, and there is no way Comfort Of Strangers could stand competition
with the best of 'em.
I count exactly one track here where an interesting musical move was suggested —
ʽRectifyʼ has a sort of non-trivial transition from the fast gallop of the
verses to the slow shuffle of the "if you take a drop of water from a
bucket..." chorus. Both parts in themselves are pretty standard fare
country-pop, but the way they alternate with each other is novel and even fun,
especially compared to the utter facelessness of the rest.
It is quite possible — indeed, almost a
certainty — that some of these songs could have been saved by means of more
imaginative arrangements (bring back Orbit!). Not even Beth Orton's biggest
fans could probably claim that she is an outstanding guitar or piano player, or
endowed with some sort of idiosyncratic playing technique that puts her in her
own niche. The «folktronica» thing was the only
thing that gave her music an edge; take away the «-tronica» and you are left
with nothing. There is no sense in wasting time analyzing these songs one by
one. They are not «awful bad» per se, but I'd rather they be awful bad, because
this demonstration of by-the-book «tasteful sensitive grace» is as
head-splittingly dull as watching a Nora Ephron movie, sorry. Thumbs down.
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