Doing the Distance

Album Review

Snowglobe is a partnership between singer/songwriters Brad Postlethwaite and Tim Regan, whose contrasting musical and lyrical perspectives complement each other on the ambitious Doing the Distance. Postlethwaite is the more complicated of the two. His songs often boast imagistic lyrics that seem to trace the non-linear, arbitrarily changing nature of dreams; indeed, he frequently suggests that dreams are his chief inspiration. ("Ms. June": "I get lost in a dream. Yeah, I dream to forget that I'm dying. So, I had a dream. I had a big, distorted dream." "Baby": "Oh, perfect beauty was all around my eyes as I searched for its soothing amidst a cloudy fight whose seed was planted deep inside my head, wove round my movements and my thoughts its thread as I was fast asleep in bed." "Aimless Sailor": "Your dreams seemed holy as you were watching them uncurl, chasing them up that ladder to the top of the world....") You also get the feeling that hearing Neil Young's song "After the Goldrush" for the first time was a revelatory experience for him, suggesting that lyrics could be packed with interesting, if ambiguous images drawn from the subconscious ("all in a dream," as Young sang). Postlethwaite sets those lyrics to equally complex, if always melodic music, adding horns and strings here and there, ever ready to make dramatic changes in tempo and instrumentation. The most ordinary element of his music is his singing voice, a nasal, slightly flat deadpan tenor reminiscent of They Might Be Giants' John Linnell. Regan is much more straightforward in his songs. He is no stranger to musical elaboration, but on songs like "Regime" and the generically titled "Rock Song" he opts more for simple, direct guitar rock and words that, while not without the occasional flourish, rarely take off for the heavens as Postlethwaite's do. (Dreams are mentioned in Regan's lyrics, too, but his characters usually seem to have woken up.) Alternated with his partner's tracks, Regan's serve to anchor the album, making this an effective musical partnership in a neo-progressive rock style.