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| Album Grade: A |
The motif of rebirth is especially poignant on a
breakup record like Wheel. It’s not
an album where the emotional torture of the writer is immediately palpable due
in large part to the shiny façade of the instrumentals. Indeed the Cans, who
were dropped from the group’s banner before the album was released, provide an
extremely complex and dense instrumental backing, running the gamut of power
and tenderness. The roster has expanded to include a pianist, various stringed
instruments and a smattering of tambourine. Sometimes, this richness and variety has Wheel
sound like a backwoods jam session as imagined by Walt Disney; a rowdy bunch of
characters all scrambling to get a word in edgewise who all happen to combine
in perfect harmony. It shouldn’t work out, but it does, and it sounds awfully
cheery when it comes together.
Of course all credit for the group’s harmony goes to
Stevenson herself, as it is the unity of person that keeps Wheel rolling along without spinning out. Getting caught up in the
instrumentals would be an easy trap to fall into were Stevenson not such a
compelling character. Her voice can give
the most mundane activities gravity and communicate perhaps better than her
lyrics the emotional reeling she has done. It’s the inflection on the chorus of
“Runner,” the palpable sadness on “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and the
sensitivity of non-canon opener “Renee” that really drill home both Stevenson’s
emotions and appeal; she’s a very relatable voice with a good sense of how to
balance description, metaphor and introspection.
The juxtaposition between the instruments and
Stevenson is astounding. Stevenson is at times icy, always calculating,
obviously having carefully chosen her words. She is precise in pitch and
diction, holding court over the charming instruments that try to keep the tone
light. Thus, “Sink, Swim” may be the song best representative of the album as a
whole. The peppy guitar riff along with the quick snare taps and accordion
harmony playing the part of “Swim” while the lyrics, chock-full of nature-based
imagery, describe prolonged pain: the “Sink” portion of the program. The
interplay between two traditionally opposed factions is the kind of subtle
brilliance that characterizes Wheel,
and also what makes it such a great successor to the far simpler Sit, Resist.
In the context of the cover, Stevenson is the frosty
winter to The Cans’ brilliant summertime, with individual songs serving as the
autumn and spring, the marriage of components from both. With the
centralization of Wheel around its
trusty axle Stevenson, we understand the winter of her discontent is the focus,
with the sunshine of the instruments sometimes peering through the clouds to
alleviate some of the grey skies. The process, like a year, is self-repeating,
with enough variance within the individual songs to keep Wheel from falling into a Groundhog’s Day groove despite having no
noticeably stronger tracks.
Wheel
isn’t
anything that hasn’t been done before, but I’d wager it’s the first album on
which the specific elements come together with such force and perfect unity.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a spot on the album where an experiment doesn’t
work: the instruments don’t battle each other, there’s no extraneously long
section of a song- in fact, some may leave you wanting more- and the vocals are
always pitch perfect. It’s rare that a breakup album is executed with this
level of precision and maturity, but it sure is pleasant to hear. Only Laura
Stevenson could write such mesmerizing, palatable schadenfreude.
Tracklist:
1. Renee
2. Triange
3. Runner
4. Every Tense
5. Bells and Whistles
6. Sink, Swim
7. The Hole
8. Eleonora
9. The Move
10. Journey to the Center of the Earth
11. Telluride
12. L-DOPA
13. The Wheel
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