The Dears
No Cities Left (Spin Art)
By John Everhart
Published: November 17th, 2004 | 2:39pm
A visceral, bombastic take on the gloom of bands like the Tindersticks and the Smiths, No Cities Left is a grand, ambitious achievement. Heavy-handed instrumentation abounds here, but what sets the Dears apart is vocalist Murray Lightburn. Wryly dramatic like Morrissey, with a dash of Serge Gainsbourg's romanticism, Lightburn's contributions are utterly compelling and are what elevate the Dears above a litany of downtrodden post-shoegaze acts.
The songs on No Cities Left veer wildly, but are always grounded by the sheer emotional weight of Lightburn's vocals. The adrenalin head rush of "Lost in the Plot" approximates the Smiths' "Big Mouth Strikes Again," as Lightburn laconic vocals glide over the chugging keyboard and guitar melody, before the chorus kicks into groove-driven overdrive, a flourish that finds him blackly crooning, "I promise not to cry anymore." "Pinned Together, Falling Apart" begins as a woozy waltz number, as Lightburn's tremulous, affected vocals resonate on the simple, devastating declaration, "I have been horrified by the though of losing you / Stop telling me, I don't want to know," eventually metamorphosing into a sea of white noise dissonance that finds the singer dejectedly pleading, "No, no, no."
On "We Can Find It," Lightburn acerbically suggests, "We're looking far, we're searching wide, still it's nowhere to be found," conveying the overriding sense of confusion No Cities Left engenders. Yeah, Lightburn's looking for something he probably won't find, but across this superb 12-track journey, it becomes obvious that he's having the time of his life, and tearing his guts out while searching.
Issue #35
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