winterpills by rick baker

A Week With Winterpills' "The Light Divides": Day 1

16 April 2007
tell your friends... tell your friends...

Words by Tony Conte // Illustration by Rick Baker

Imagine Belle and Sebastian on methamphetamines. Imagine The Violent Femmes on Robitussin DM. Imagine Stars without the high school melodrama. Imagine Hem…um…if they were interesting. This is what Winterpills is doing.

Admittedly, The Light Divides is the first Winterpills album that I’ve picked up, though it’s the second that they’ve made. True to their name, they’ve created warm music for indoors when a winter night takes over. You may call them a clonazepam band, sounding (much like Reindeer Section or Belle and Sebastian) as if they’ve been heavily dosed on sedatives. But don’t think they’re boring…not that there’s any threat of violence for such a misstatement on your part. Honestly, they sound as if they’d rather pass out on the couch than entertain a fight for their honor. But hey, you’re not getting into this for the insipid angst of any mid-nineties Pearl Jam bootlegs, no, you’re here in the name of the acquired tastes of musical subtlety. You want music that rewards more with each listen, or you wouldn’t bother reading a review of the same album for five days, right? We’re adults now, no?

Winterpills echo some of the darker cadences mastered by late sixties/early seventies outfits like the Carpenters or the Mamas and the Papas. It’s that slow swing from the ghostly hollows of some tracks to the frenetic acoustic strumming of others that keeps the tunes interesting. Inventive lyrics sewn through the songs, lightly whispered in Indigo Girls-like harmonies, hold this overstuffed ragdoll of a pseudo-folk album together. Old cotton stuffing still pushes through the seams, rattling tambourines and “shaken things” fall out, but Winterpills manage to tame the eclecticism which threatens to unravel the entire piece, and use it to their advantage. The album shakes itself out like day-old spaghetti from a half-open Ziplock baggie.

When you buy this album, hold the CD up to the light and appraise it for what it is: a specimen of near-perfect musical pacing. Slow, low-lit songs will gently paw at you between the more aggressive tunes (imagine Winnie the Pooh in an aggro-mood) until they have your full attention. And if the song “June Eyes” slips in unnoticed, I can promise you that it won’t slip out the same way. With one listen, I find myself almost panting for more of this gem of a tune. Simon and Garfunkel wrote “Bridge over Troubled Water” so that songs like “June Eyes” could exist.

“June Eyes fly fly home, you are not alone, night walk through sleeping fields, you are not alone.”

This album is not an experiment in new and exciting sounds, a la David Fischoff, but it is most certainly a well-written group of acoustic/electric tunes which doesn’t just deserve your attention, it earns your attention.

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