Transmitter Failure

Album Review

Jenny Owen Youngs stuck to the singer/songwriter handbook on her 2005 debut, making occasional diversions from the tranquil, acoustic-based material with barbed songs like "F**k Was I." Four years later, Transmitter Failure finds the artist widening her reach with electric instrumentation, collaboratively written tracks, and a genre-spanning wealth of material. "Led to the Sea" is the most immediately striking tune here, a fusion of bass-heavy verses and buoyant, stomping refrains, but Youngs' biggest asset is her willingness to explore vastly different territory, both musically and lyrically. "Here Is a Heart" peppers its elegant chord progression with some unexpected culinary imagery — "Here is a heart... battered and braised, grilled and sautéed, just how you like it" — while "Clean Break" likens a quick breakup to surgery, with neo-jazz melodies and spaghetti western guitars adding color to such stark lines as "Just sterilize the scalpel and let's get this over with." Youngs' ability to confidently jump from genre to genre owes a sizable debt to producer Dan Romer, who laces her music with strings, ukuleles, horns, and harmonies (most of them sung by Bess Rogers, sideman extraordinaire and a solid songwriter in her own right) as he sees fit. Even so, Youngs is the true star here, and the studio polish that coats Transmitter Failure only makes the album more palatable.