Fiddleback

Daniel hales, and the frost heaves’ album You Make a Better Door Than a Window feels like a labor of love. The CD—the first new CD I’ve added to my collection in years—arrived in the mail with a photocopied lyric book in the jewel case—complimenting the nicely designed, glossy j-card—and a ‘zine-like, chapbook called I Have a Song to Tell You Now, which describes itself as “11 poems that aren’t about the album You Make a Better Door Than a Window…” Of course, that claim isn’t entirely true as these poems, written by an impressive array of writers (including Daniel Mahoney, Michael Earl Craig, and Corwin Ericson, among others) each seem to carry at least a passing relationship to the album’s twelve songs. The addition of the chapbook (printed by Setebos Press), is a nice touch, and gives the project the feeling of being just that—a project, a lovely and compelling artifact on which a group of people spent some serious time and energy. As I’m neither a poet, nor a competent reviewer of poetry, from here on out, I’m going to stick to a discussion of the album, proper. Let it be noted, though, that the chapbook is a nice touch and it makes the album feel like something special, before even hearing a single note. On its own, You Make a Better Door Than a Window is a pretty nice album. Album opener, “Halo Over My Horns,” seems to nod toward some of The Clientele’s later work, invoking a warm and spacious autumnal atmosphere. “Braille for God,” builds on that atmosphere, rooting itself in delicate guitar figures that feel quietly lush thanks to some subtle horns, strings, and bells. Elsewhere, “Sick Day,” features another gorgeous, autumnal arrangement, the vaguely alt-country-ish “All the Owes in Tomorrow,” is fresh and loose, providing an engaging counterpoint to some of the album’s tighter arrangements, and “Present Perfect Tents,” is an impressive sideways step into Revolver-era, Beatles-esque psychadelia. Generally speaking, Daniel hales, and the frost heaves have made a strong, atmospheric album with You Make a Better Door Than a Window. Of course, not everything here quite works—the drawn-out metaphors of “Bubble Test,” and “Singing in the Breakdown Lane” are too-cute by half, and despite its lovely, rootsy production, “Woman Inside My Head,” loses itself in a forced, dropped-g attempt at dialect and a bit too much of an emphasis on the banal (“But my tires need alignin’, the toilet needs a plungin’”), especially when compared to the lovely lyrics of “Present Perfect Tents” (“I ripped a page out of the light/and though every word’s a lie/the truth is each one tries…”). That being said, the album’s hits far outweigh its misses and, in the end, You Make a Better Door Than a Window proves itself worth both the time and energy Daniel Hales et al put into the production of the album and chapbook, and the time it takes to read and listen through both.

This post originally appeared at thefiddleback.com.