Bone Island

Album Review

Since the Working Title's brief major-label sojourn with Universal, which saw the album About-Face released on the Cause for Alarm imprint in 2006, the band has been reduced essentially to a solo project for singer/songwriter/guitarist/keyboardist Joel Hamilton, who is joined by his producer, Jake Sinclair, on bass and Joe Morin on drums for the act's first full-length recording since About-Face, Bone Island. Hamilton has one of those whiny, nasal tenors (think Loudon Wainwright III, Perry Farrell, Adam Duritz) that he uses to put across introspective lyrics full of dissatisfaction and a sense of romantic betrayal. The narrator of the songs, usually lying in bed in a daze, worries he's become jaded due to a world of violence, adulterous lovers, and dishonesty. That's what one gets from reading the hand-printed lyric sheet set among Zachary Johnson's Ralph Steadman-like artwork in the CD booklet. On the disc, Hamilton's unhappiness, while still apparent, is set in dense pop/rock arrangements, the penetrating quality of his voice ameliorated by the echoey sheen in which Sinclair envelopes the album's sound. Morin, Hamilton writes in the annotations, "played the drums like crazy," and that's especially true in "Wolf," which has an instrumental track consisting almost entirely of percussion, and "Listen, Read, Decide," on which the drums rampage, dominating the song. If Morin isn't an official member of the Working Title, he deserves to be. Elsewhere, Hamilton calms down enough to duet with Stephanie Underhill on "Arms and Thighs," in which they are accompanied by Josh Koler's pedal steel, while "Someone Else," with its strummed acoustic guitar, has a folkish feel. But no matter the accompaniment, the singer seems desperate and alone, seemingly with only his attractive music to console him.