Quiet But Deadly-- Chappaquiddick Skyline

If you are not familiar with the Pernice Brothers, this is probably the third album you should look into. Northampton Massachusetts' own Joe Pernice is simply one of the best and most eloquent contemporary American songwriters. His first record, the string-laden Overcome By Happiness and dark 60's pop of The World Won't End are two fantastic albums that deserve all the critical accolades.

But this album is a quiet gem, a side project but for all in name a stripped down and sad Pernice Brothers album. On this record the music matches the words. Reflective dark lyrics, beautiful melodies,  vocals subdued but with quiet intensity, this record is mostly perfect introspective chamber pop. Some of the songs on this record are Pernice's very best. Quite accidentally, I stumbled on a review of this record in Pitchfork from about ten years ago, and the critic shreds the album. And I can understand him in a way--if I had written this review after I had heard this album for the first time I would have been underwhelmed. You almost unavoidably find yourself comparing the record to his other body of work. But this album was not created like this accidentally--it was a deliberate departure from Pernice albums. After I heard the album a few times I realized how great the songs are, and that the arrangements are poignant and that the music meshes as a whole.



"I hate my life" begins Everyone Else is Evolving a sad song, lyrics for someone stuck in a loop. Solitary Swedish Houses sounds like a standard, makes me visualize a cold cold cloudless blue sky in winter, one of Pernice's great works. But there are many highlights, Courage Up, Hundred Dollar Pocket both reminiscent of Pernice's early countryish group Scud Mountain Boys. Breakneck Speed is another little gem, with touching falsetto emphasizing the futility and helplessness of a relationship.

Do You Think We Might Have Made It Up Somehow?

Two of You Sleep is very much an Everly Brothers homage, contrasted by dark lyrics of betrayal, disappointment and sad resignation. The one non original song is a slightly slowed up Leave Me Alone by New Order which is works well here, done for the most part in the style of the original. Pernice has threatened to release a sequel to Chappaquiddick but at this point has not gotten around to it. Some of his best songs are on this album, so I could understand that he might want to keep songs of this calibre with his main project. He is an artist that doesn't seem to like staying in one place--you could argue that his albums are genre exercises that could have existed in different decades or at least that he has a questing spirit who wants to keep developing stylistically. Certainly he has a penchant for melding bright AM Radio ready melodies to dark lyrics. On his third album, His Mine and Ours he explores songs in the style of the 80's a la The Smiths and New Order. But really whatever arrangement the songs come in, they are at their essence melodious and articulate.