The Stand-In – Caitlin Rose
March has come, with occasional sunlight and warmth. Caitlin Rose, who is adorable, and has an
adorable voice, and writes/sings glorious countrified albums, has released a
new album. And yet, here is an
incomplete list of images not invoked on this new album: sunlight, warmth, adorable lovers, daffodils,
country roads, high school, and beer.
None of these images, save perhaps the beer, are easily
invoked in a smoky downtown lounge below street level, which appears to be
where Ms. Rose has spent the last two years.
And she must never leave.
The Stand-In is
kind of a rare thing, and ergo kind of a big deal. While serious/alt/traditional/neo-traditional
country acts have superimposed themselves upon other environs before
(examples: The Garage, The Rock Stadium,
The Bluegrass Nation, The Popular Radio,) very few of them have abdicated every
possible route to stardom to instead sound at times like they are lying atop a
piano with a cigarette. “Thinking—I’ve
been thinking about leavin’ this old town behind,” she sings. That town is very tiny indeed in the rear
view mirror. Caitlin is gone. In her place is the Stand-In.
The town she is leaving, amusingly, sounds a lot like
Whiskeytown, where yards feature neatly pruned hedges of banjo and pedal steel,
the populace speak often about “records,” and there is always a rhythm guitar
to borrow when you need one. The first
several tracks on The Stand-In are
exercises in perfect alt-country of the type that Ryan Adams and his erstwhile
crew mastered at the end of the 1990s.
Album opener “No One to Call” is just such an up-tempo
romper, instrumented to within an inch or two of perfection. Follow up “I was Cruel” ups the ante by bringing together the four alt-country horseman, adding mandolin and organ to the
aforementioned banjo and pedal steel.
Rose didn’t write this one, evidently, but no matter: her singing elevates it to minor-masterpiece
status.
There are interesting elements to Rose’s singing and to the
manner in which it was captured during the recording of The Stand-In. The voice
itself lacks a straightforward contemporary comparison. It is equal parts torch and teeny-bopper, and
not altogether very country when taken on its own merits. (This is all
compliment. Caitlin Rose could sing the
manual of a dishwashing machine and the results are going to sound
dead-to-rights gorgeous and shatteringly innocent.)
As for technical observations vis-a-vis recording
technique: Rose’s voice clips and
distorts pretty regularly at normal listening volumes throughout the course of The Stand-In—whenever she begins to
really belt one out. This isn’t enough
to annoy but is enough to notice. The
regularity with which it occurs makes clear that the effect is intentional, and
the intent is almost certainly to imply timelessness. This album sounds not infrequently as though
it is being piped through a primitive radio, in a primitive living room, during
an earlier time.
“Only a Clown,” with its pep and its second-time-in-four-songs
reference to records, brings the initial movement of The Stand-In to a pleasant close.
A stand-in is only a stand-in if there exists a Star, and an iconoclast
can only function as such with an icon handy.
These first four songs--expertly constructed, well-suited to
springtime--amount to a gorgeous icon, indeed.
But the lights are dimming, and we are leaving the realm of the
alt-routine.
Which brings us to
the first we-interrupt-this-program moment of The Stand-In, “Pink Champagne.”
The lighting is low and the piano is center stage for a languid tempo.
Rose’s voice is innocent yet smoldering, wreathed in implied nicotine. And the topic, of course, is a Vegas wedding
day. The song’s chronology begins on the day of the
wedding and ends years later, and her perfectly-pitched voice captures both
eras. This could be the stuff of dashed
dreams and crashed adulthood, and yet Rose’s voice glazes the entire experience
(of life; of this song) in love and strength.
It is magic, with strings.
By track 7 “Golden Boy” we are awash in the new speakeasy
Caitlin Rose, confident and Hot. As. Hell.
“Doomsday came and you were still around,” she coos. “All you know is it’s all over now.” The song is about him leaving, but it might
as well be titled “Golden Straw Man,” because no one could ever possibly leave
someone who sings like this. This is The
Taunt From Atop the Piano. Indeed, it
should be a heartbreak and yearning song experience, but Rose’s voice manages
to make it as much postromantic as post-break-up. She doesn’t sound longing or desperate so
much as bemused by her own entreaties.
While the cycle of loving, being left, and leaving captures
the structure of The Stand-In, the
major and circular issues of Caitlin Rose’s voice and implied attitude render
this album gyroscopically resistant to toppling over from emotional duress. In the setting of so much loss, there is so
little sadness here, and no smirking, either; in their places are assured
beauty and a place in time.
The indoor smoke clouds gather and the drinks stiffen by additional
album highlight “When I’m Gone” at track 10.
“I was lyin’ when I said there was plenty of time,” she sings, albeit
sounding not even a tiny bit rushed. We are post-wedding and post-abandonment
by this point in the album and yet, miraculously, Rose is still quite clearly
calling the shots: about leaving, about
moving on, and about the perfect background vocals and guitar work.
(The latter at several points on The Stand-In recalls the pastoral stylings of—of all damn
things—grumpy old Mark Knopfler’s solo albums.
Knopfler also excels at creating rootsy music that is written, played
and produced to age well, and some of the guitar licks on the slow-to-midtempo
stuff here sound like they were pilfered from his armory. As influences go: well chosen.)
Fulminant Lounge Status does not arrive until the final
track, after a great many additional cocktails.
Punning worn-out songs against worn-out beaus on “Old Numbers,” Ms. Rose
adds enough banjo and trumpet to tilt the recipe to full-on burlesque
territory. It is 3am or later, and the
street level entrance is closed. The old
songs are gone, the former love interests are gone too. Next, please.
Keepers: 1-12
March 2013
