Home Life

Home Life

With a "reworking" of Bill Withers' "Lean on Me" opening the album, ex–Titus Andronicus guitarist Andrew Cedermark isn't interested in connecting with the easy-listening crowd but finding something else entirely in squalls of feedback and loosely melodic guitar lines. "Tiller of Lawn" follows, and a similar approach emerges. This is music where the discernible center is either missing or mixed well into the background. The effect is of being on a ship where the waves of sound knock you around. It can do so with serene mellowness ("Canis Minor") or sudden nasty flourishes of feedback ("Heap of Trash"). The expert guitarmanship buries the vocals in parts and certainly keeps the drummer pushing to break through. There are moments of forthright ensemble playing ("Train Window Man") where the band sounds like numerous other combinations of groups without sounding like any of them. So names like Meat Puppets, Neil Young, Pavement, Palace, Television, Silver Jews, and many others are more like misdirections than comparisons; Cedermark creates his own stability within the confusion.

More By Andrew Cedermark

Select a country or region

Africa, Middle East, and India

Asia Pacific

Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

The United States and Canada