Jeremy Messersmith - The Reluctant Graveyard (2010)


Jeremy Messersmith is a pop musician based in Minneapolis,Minnesota.

Jeremy Messersmith was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and grew up in the Tri-Cities area of Washington. He moved to Minneapolis in 1999 to attend North Central University.




Jeremy Messersmith’s third album of smart indie pop continues in the same vein he mined on his first two. This one plays down the death fixation in favor of an upbeat, wistfully tuneful 60s psychedelic pop feel. But unlike the rest of the slavish Beach Boys and Ellliot Smith imitators, Messersmith has established a voice of his own: there’s a depth and a thoughtfulness to his lyrics and a subtly clever wit throughout the tunes and the arrangements, an indication of how successfully he’s immersed himself in intelligent oldschool pop sounds.

The first song here is something of a cross between late 60s English dancehall-style Kinks and Elliott Smith, with some absolutely gorgeous piano/guitar textures on the chorus. The second track, Dillinger Eyes is Badfinger-esque powerpop, followed by the album’s best song, Organ Donor. With a dark, reggae-inflected Watching the Detectives vibe enhanced by brooding strings, it’s a vividly metaphorical look at how we fall apart: “Took my brain to the seminary, never seen again…left my spine at the wedding chapel…” John the Determinist works off a bracing, tense string arrangement that underscores the narrator’s obliviously stubborn OCD vibe. Knots blends an old PiL guitar riff with a string section straight out of the Moody Blues circa 1967, a feel that returns with the mellotron-driven sympathy-for-the-devil ballad Repo Man, all sad and alone since nobody cares that he’s dead and gone. The funniest track here is the lushly jangly Rickenbacker guitar anthem Deathbed Salesman, its protagonist trying to upscale a potential casket buyer:

You’ve got a reservation
But you don’t have to wait if you don’t want to
You won’t feel a thing
All your friends are there already
This is how it has to end…

Fans of the original stuff as well as 60s revivalists like the Essex Green and Love Camp 7 will love this.




Tracklist:

01 - Lazy Bones 02:37
02 - Dillinger Eyes 03:33
03 - Organ Donor 02:51
04 - Toussaint, Grey, First in Life and Death 02:21
05 - Violet! 03:31
06 - Knots 02:59
07 - John the Determinist 03:40
08 - A Girl, a Boy, and a Graveyard 03:07
09 - Repo Man 02:05
10 - Deathbed Salesman 04:07
11 - Tomorrow 01:29



More info: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Messersmith 
http://www.jeremymessersmith.com/




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