Land Of Talk - Fun And Laughter EP

Land Of Talk
Fun And Laugh­ter EP
Sad­dle Creek; 2009

Guest Con­trib­u­tor: Jen Broadwell

Eliz­a­beth Pow­ell no doubt has a gor­geous voice. What irks me just a bit is that her lyrics are most often inde­ci­pher­able. Nev­er­the­less, it is with this innate musi­cal instru­ment that she com­mands the Cana­dian trio Land of Talk. Sad­dle Creek Records, the folks who brought you Cur­sive and Bright Eyes, are pre­pared to lib­er­ate the band’s new 4 song EP, Fun and Laugh­ter, fea­tur­ing “May You Never” as the lead sin­gle.

“May You Never” offers up a telling bun­dle of Land of Talk’s extolled tech­niques. Begin­ning with a sound that approx­i­mates the haunt­ing tones of a squeaky door hinge or a stale swing set, a down­ward scal­ing piano pro­vides the equally eerie inter­lude to Powell’s infec­tious coo. Her sul­try vocals are akin to those of Tift Mer­ritt and add to the song’s afore­men­tioned mys­te­ri­ous­ness, com­ing fully to the sur­face as the gui­tar and drum pro­vided beat picks up. While sung in a ten­der man­ner, her lyrics are quite dis­mal, from what I can make of them. “Visions on visions /​blind­ing me over time /​but I won’t go miss­ing.” Along the lines of fac­ing your fears, she seems to be announc­ing her coura­geous plan to stay put rather than run or hide from what is fright­en­ing her.

What you hear is what you get — aside from an occa­sional tiny bit of dis­tor­tion, noth­ing here seems altered or enhanced. Even with the drums of Eric Thi­bodeau lead­ing “Six­teen Asterik” and Joe Yarmush’s pow­er­ful elec­tric gui­tars direct­ing “As Me” and “May You Never,” Pow­ell can­not escape her mis­cel­la­neous folk influ­ences. Despite the fact that she tran­si­tioned away from tra­di­tional folk music quite early in her career, Powell’s echo­ing purr and cur­rent calm­ing rock fortes mesh nicely with per­sis­tent old tendencies.

By and large inflicted by EP’s spacey arrange­ments, Fun and Laugh­ter left me with a sub­dued feel­ing at its con­clu­sion. Nev­er­the­less, Eliz­a­beth Powell’s amorous, charm­ing vocals, while at times iso­lated from the other com­po­nents on the album, fit beau­ti­fully along­side her own rangy gui­tar play­ing plainly declare that this is def­i­nitely her band and she’s damn proud of it.

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Jen Broad­well is a music blog­ger from Hous­ton, TX who runs the site Music Artiste. She enjoys attend­ing local show and writ­ing scene reviews and inter­views. She also enjoys indie fes­ti­vals and national indie shows and often posts her thoughts on such events, along with new music videos. Since her hobby doesn’t pay the bills, she works for the Uni­ver­sity of Hous­ton in Development.