Beachwood Sparks: The Tarnished Gold

BEACHWOOD SPARKS: THE TARNISHED GOLD (2012)

1) Forget The Song; 2) Sparks Fly Again; 3) Mollusk; 4) Tarnished Gold; 5) Water From The Well; 6) Talk About Lonesome; 7) Leave That Light On; 8) Nature's Light; 9) No Queremos Oro; 10) Earl Jean; 11) Alone Together; 12) The Orange Grass Special; 13) Goodbye.

With the kind of fame that Beachwood Sparks had been able to earn (each of their albums has amassed from 10 to 20 customer reviews on Amazon, to give a rough picture), one might get a little puzzled about why this band felt the need to get back together under the same old name, ten years after they'd all dissipated to test out various alternate projects. A «Pink Floyd reunion» or a «Fleetwood Mac reunion» or an «Eagles reunion» — that kind of makes sense, whatever the ac­tual results might be, but a «Beachwood Sparks reunion» just sounds weird.

However, just one listen to The Tarnished Gold, the band's third album, is enough to set things straight. This is not a reunion because the band never really felt apart. What they did was take their own advice and go back to a tree-like state — that way, no matter how long the breaks be­tween albums, time stands absolutely still, and the next one picks up where the last one left off even if the tectonic plates themselves had relocated in the meantime. There is only one problem: the more time you spend standing still, the deeper your roots sink into the ground, and thus, ten years of phantom existence resulted in the band's third album becoming their dreamiest — nay, their most lethargic — creation thus far.

With the exception of maybe just one or two mid-tempo soft country-rockers, and a highly artifi­cial and unfunny excursion into Latin territory (ʽNo Queremos Oroʼ), all of these songs are slow, atmospheric, brooding segments of psycho-folk, and all of them could be roughly described as spiritual variations on the theme of ʽConfusion Is Nothing Newʼ. Except that there is neither any confusion here, nor anything new — the Sparks still place their trust in tender, caressing mixes of acoustic guitars, echoey slide leads, retro-sounding keyboard tapestries in the background, and hushed, relaxating vocal harmonies. No individual part of this sound is ever great by itself, and when they are all merged together, The Tarnished Gold is, at best, a pleasing, instantaneously forgettable lullaby. Listen to it every evening, seven days in a row, and by the end of the test period you will probably not be able to remember a single song — but you just might get a week of heal­thy, eco-friendly sleep.

Where this album fails, as far as I see it, is in its goal to generate transcendental magic — the very goal to which everything else, like lively tempos and catchy melodies, is sacrificed without mercy. In ten years, Beachwood Sparks have not managed to pick up any new tricks: they think that their three cherished muses — Echo, Repetition, and Tenderness — will somehow do the job for them. But, like all responsible muses, all these three can offer is a helping hand — they cannot teach the band to learn new chords or implement original instrumentation. Hence, another dis­appointed thumbs down. Put it this way: good taste may be a virtue, but who needs good taste if there's nothing on the horizon to be tasted?

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Beachwood Sparks: Once We Were Trees

BEACHWOOD SPARKS: ONCE WE WERE TREES (2001)

1) Germination; 2) Confusion Is Nothing New; 3) The Sun Surrounds Me; 4) You Take The Gold; 5) Hearts Mend; 6) Let It Run; 7) Old Manatee; 8) The Hustler; 9) Yer Selfish Ways; 10) By Your Side; 11) Close Your Eyes; 12) Banjo Press Conference; 13) Jugglers Revenge; 14) The Good Night Whistle; 15) Once We Were Trees.

Everything about the concept of this album suggests that, with a little luck, it could have been one of the greatest records of the new millennium. An established country-rock band with a penchant for old-style psychedelia. An «eco-conscious» overtone. A musical link between all the green things that grow and one's own existence, a pantheist's paradise expressed in modern sounds, but steeped in tradition. A suggestive album title, and a pretty album cover to go along with it, some­how reminiscent of Friends by The Beach Boys — another record that seemed bent on exploring man's relation with nature and the transcendence of things.

This is what makes the ultimate reaction so bitter. There is no way to ignore the ambitiousness of the goals — not with a thirty-second introductory track called ʽGerminationʼ — but there is no way, either, that one could admit the goals have been fulfilled. To do that, Beachwood Sparks de­cide to move even further away from the idea of writing sharp, memorable melodies, and replace them with «atmosphere», understood as «unbreakable tissues of repetitive guitar / keyboard pat­terns». Now maybe there is a philosophical idea behind that decision — as in, plant growth hap­pens on a steady, but quiet and inobtrusive basis, and so should the music. But at least that idea would have required better production than what we have here.

The album never really gets much better, or much worse, than its first real song, ʽConfusion Is Nothing Newʼ. Slow, echo-laden, with three or four guitars going off at the same time just mind­ing their business — four different trees growing in their own different ways... okay, time to dis­pense with these comparisons. The multi-tracked vocals that come in are almost totally devoid of expression: they hit the notes all right, but this ain't even Byrds level, let alone the Beach Boys. Is it pretty? By all means. Tasteful? No complaints about that. But does it make you feel small? Big? Happy? Sad? A part of Mother Fucking Nature? One with the universe? One against the universe? All I can say is that, perhaps, the song would stand a better chance if differently produced, so that the vocals, guitars, and keyboards wouldn't get all glued together.

Another observation is that the songs, in their desire to combine elements of «normal» country pop with elements of ambience, simply end up too limp and diluted to qualify as pop songs — and too poppy to qualify as true atmospheric panoramas to relax and meditate to. The band is at its best not when it tries to take the middle ground, but when they give it their all in one or the other direction. Thus, ʽYou Take The Goldʼ and ʽYer Selfish Waysʼ, two numbers that pick up the tempo, are moderately fun and catchy; and on the other side of the fence, ʽThe Good Night Whistleʼ, with its repetitive structure ("train's going to sleep tonight, train's going to sleep to­night...") and train-whistle-imitating harmonica, is as close to putting you in a specific old-timey mindset as they ever get here.

In a nutshell, Once We Were Trees is a classic example of setting your plank so impossibly high, all that remains is sit back and hope the audience will only stare in awe at how high the plank is, failing to notice that you have not the least chance of making it. Maybe if they had themselves a Lindsey Buckingham in the band, or any other such master with a gift for melody and playing technique and atmospheric production, things would have turned out differently. As it is, they should have stuck with ʽThe Calming Seasʼ paradigm — aiming for fairy-magical slide guitar melodies that are not impeded by lethargy, numbness, and a cloak of redundant overdubs for maximum effect. As a not-unpleasant, but still jarringly disappointing sequel to a promising de­but, Once We Were Trees (And We Still Play Like Ones) gets a thumbs down, I'm afraid.

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Beachwood Sparks: Beachwood Sparks

BEACHWOOD SPARKS: BEACHWOOD SPARKS (2000)

1) Desert Skies; 2) Ballad Of Never Rider; 3) Silver Morning After; 4) Singing Butterfly; 5) Sister Rose; 6) This Is What It Feels Like; 7) Canyon Ride; 8) The Reminder; 9) The Calming Seas; 10) New Country; 11) Something I Don't Recognize; 12) Old Sea Miner; 13) See, Oh Three; 14) Sleeping Butterfly.

It is said that the name «Beachwood Sparks» was coined together by the band's original drummer, Jimi Hey, out of the names of two adjacent streets in Burbank, California, native to the band's founding father and bass player Brent Rademaker. Whatever be the circumstances, the choice is brilliant. «Sparks», of course, suggests a psychedelic orientation, something along the lines of Tommy-style noise freakouts, which these guys certainly have a penchant for; but choosing «Beachwood» as a title modifier suggests something earthy, rootsy, and eco-clean — and is, con­sequently, in perfect agreement with the band's country-rock orientation.

The roots of this band reach all the way up to the «space cowboy» era of The Notorious Byrd Brothers, Easy Rider, and such — in fact, this categorization is so obvious that it gets verbally rehashed in just about any text that has to do with Beachwood Sparks. It is hard for me to judge in which particular location on the long line of evolution of that genre they happen to stand, since I am no big fan of country, be it «authentic» or «astral». However, they have such a good sense of balance that it is illegitimate to brand them as «country» — being no foes to distorted riffs, deep folk, sunny martial pop, or noisy interludes. Steel and slide guitar melodies lie at the core of their sound, but they have a pretty impressive «sonic periphery» as well.

This pretty little self-titled debut is fairly charming, if not altogether memorable. The band's weakest point is interesting songwriting — pretty much the bane of all country-based music, I guess — but they try, and, every once in a while, come out with a winner: my personal favorite is ʽThe Calming Seasʼ, with a pedal steel part from Dave Scher that's just as pretty as a songbird, but way catchier. On the rockier side, there is ʽSister Roseʼ, steadily galloping along on a light­hearted merry note, then gradually melting away in a sea of noise before, right at the very end, emerging once again to a steady country-rock mode of operation. (It actually seems to be a rip-off of some old Flying Burrito Brothers tune, but nothing exact pops to mind).

The album wins over through its complete lack of «pretense» — even the loud tunes are really quite quiet, including the band's two-part and three-part vocals, harmonizing together in a soft, high-pitched, semi-whispered manner. The arrangements, which may spill over into the noisy / trippy without a single warning and just as easily snap out of that state, are only as much experi­mental as they can allow themselves without breaking up with old-timey traditions of melody and harmony — and the basic idea of the album is a good old-fashioned celebration of peace, beauty, and idealism, without any excesses or overplaying.

Almost inevitably, the album tends to drag a bit, particularly in its slower parts. When they really put their backs to it, the band members are capable of generating a convincing atmosphere — for instance, on the brief instrumental interludes ʽSinging Butterflyʼ and ʽSleeping Butterflyʼ (despite the titles, there is not much difference between the two) where minimalistic steel guitar and keyboard parts merge together in a dreamy, otherworldly landscape populated with alien crea­tures making odd sounds («butterflies» don't really cut it, or maybe they're giant prehistoric but­terflies equipped with powerful sonic generators). But just as often, they don't put their backs to it — ʽThe Reminderʼ and ʽNew Countryʼ are downright boring, with the latter of the two realizing this way too late, when, for its last thirty seconds, it launches into a fast country groove.

Nevertheless, on the whole this is a positive experience, heartily recommended to all the fans of a good, not too professional, but inventive, steel guitar sound, and to all those who like their «Ame­ricana» a little less self-conscious and a little more experimental than we usually see it. Maybe the idea of a band like Beachwood Sparks sounds more exciting than the actual band turns out to be, but that does not preclude ʽThe Calming Seasʼ from being one of the prettiest soft-rock num­bers of the year 2000, so I would like to present the record with a modest thumbs up. Sure they aren't Wilco-level, but there is something to be said about the humble guy who doesn't like taking too many risks along the way.

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