The Tourist’s Not Now, Nor Ever opens with the promising “A Month of Sundays”; an upbeat, feel-good tune about falling out of love but wanting to stay in love. The song positively makes you want to sway, which in music, is almost always a good sign; swaying invariably indicates a perfect mixture of both vocals and instrumentals that’s neither too heavy nor too dull.
Sadly, the album descends into an insufferable sleeper that’ll have you crying for dear life in a matter of fifteen minutes. It’s not that Hunter MacDermut - frontman of the trio - isn’t talented. On the contrary, he is quite so. His vocals, albeit underdeveloped, bring to mind those of Elliot Smith and Sufjan Stevens, but his technicality and musicianship falls far from these more seasoned players.
Not Now, Nor Ever will most likely have you hitting the eject button on your player after the first three tracks, though admittedly, there are a few hidden gems if you give it a chance. The piano-heavy “La Nueva Luna” for instance transcends into a beautiful piano solo halfway through that interweaves with great harmonizing. “My My” seems to be one of the few tracks where MacDermut decides to take a risk with his voice and it’s a risk well taken because the song is a perfect mid-tempo jazzy number that\\\'s unlike anything else in the album and makes you wonder if it\\\'s concocted by the same artist.
However, the majority of the tracks on Not Now, Nor Ever are tortuously monotonal with no sense of originality. You really can’t tell the difference between the dull “I Didn’t I Don’t” and the equally dull “Better Late than Never”. Sung with a deadpan voice that often escalate into a painful falsetto, they sound less exciting than the noise coming out of your air conditioner. And as if this isn’t torture enough, MacDermut delights us with a cringe-worthy acappella near the latter half of the record with a song appropriately entitled, “If Anyone Asks, I’m Dead"; a one-minute track that feels infinitely longer.
It is questionable whether or not he is “better than a lot” (a liner note testament) of other guitar-strapping singer-songwriters because the tracks in Not Now, Not Ever could not be more cliché or unoriginal. The Tourist sings with an unearned conviction; MacDermut\'s voice is appealing, but he stubbornly insists on being as lifeless as possible as if to elevate his misery. As a songwriter, he is still in the sort of juvenile stage that will have him looking back in embarrassment a few years from now. Not Now, Nor Ever is not a bad album; it is simply boring. Taken in small doses, it could be manageable, even surprisingly good sometimes, but listening to it in its entirety--well, that is a punishment no one deserves.
"Not Now Nor Ever" is on sale April 7, 2007 from Unsigned.
