On Entanglements, Zac Pennington’s Parenthetical Girls (now a more solidified band after co-founder Jeremy Cooper dropped out) is apparently trying to out-SMiLE Brian Wilson. His efforts are founded on fragmentation—piecing together sounds into different songs and trying to make something even marginally sensible out of them. He’s also clearly obsessed with a great variety of instruments, ignoring guitars in favor of whatever little thing he can find in a high school music room. And I can certainly imagine him going through Wilson-esque freakouts when it doesn’t sound just right. Maybe he needs more cowbell.
But Wilson’s abstract obsessions grew out of natural sequencing; I can’t help but think that Pennington and company are just showing off. Very few of the album’s sudden stop-starts (usually swooning Spector-esque strings abruptly segueing into tinkling pianos or erratic plucking sounds and vice versa) make any logical sense. I can stomach almost any sort of tentative “indie posturing” so long as it springs naturally from the material. While Pennington’s songwriting is aided by instrumental arrangements courtesy of Matt Carlson and jigsaw-mixing from producer Jherek Bischoff, there’s still no doubt where the focus of Entanglements comes from. The addition and deletion of instruments to this degree of self-made intimacy is meant to be surprising but natural. Mostly, it surprises on Entanglements but it rarely feels natural.
Inspirations here abound everywhere from Burt Bacharach’s lush and excessive 60s era pop tunes, the skewed storytelling and musical bravery of Fiery Furnaces, Van Dyke Park’s overt sentimentality, the hyper-literate lyricism of the Decemberists and any number of ambitious and experimental pop records from the mid-to-late 60s (obviously, Wilson & his Boys and Sgt. Pepper chief among them). But instead of merging what he likes in something focused and personal, he borrows and mangles them, turning any subtle inspirations into obvious derivations. It’s tough not to admire the adventurous spirit of such an aberrant effort, but instead of crafting something that might be considered art it ends up a frustrating, only sometimes wonderful, and perhaps even intentionally muddled mess.
The album opens with “Four Words,” a song that exposes all of the album’s future quizzical choices by beginning with a spare piano and eventually erupting in a broad and bombastic orchestral orgasm that would sound more at home in a 1940s cartoon short or a mediocre off-Broadway musical than on any pop record. As Pennington archly trills, “A swell of strings sing beneath the pleats of my dress/And speeds what beats beneath my breast,” I can’t help but shrug. The fact that nearly every word sung on Entanglements is going to be delivered in the same wistful and quivering tone is a bit depressing. I don’t despise Pennington’s voice nor do I detest the matter-of-fact writing, but without different degrees to his method, even the relatively brief album running time is too long to spend in its company.
And “Four Words” is still one of the more successful tracks. Its come-and-go galloping beat and the earnestness of Pennington’s pronouncements remind me of early Decemberists (not bad company to be in). But Colin Meloy’s steadier and more grounded voice can sell words like these; Pennington tries too hard for an emotional pull by lilting to the heavens, wavering most inflections like he feels just too darn much. But, to be fair, it must be nearly impossible to deliver lines like: “As sure as you are pure my love/A touch is good and so its done/And woe spoke in tongues my love/Would surely not send from above.” Not even a lovelorn Jane Austin heroine could say that without trembling from its over-earnest appeal.
After the overbearing accordion appearance on “Gut Symmetries,” the album does settle in during the middle section for some of the record’s smarter and more instinctive musical directions. “A Song for Ellie Greenwich” and “Young Eucharists” are both among the best cuts on the album, and although neither could possibly be defined as traditional, the quirkiness of their identities are completed by singular and centered melodic lines that compliment the audacious musical choices. They don’t stretch too far to make sure that the baroque pop identity of Entanglements is properly baroque. It’s short-lived, though—following “Eucharists” is “Entanglement,” a minute-and-a-half instrumental that has wild and uncanny mood swings that make no sense at all. Hey, they’re doing things differently, but hey, it’s not always working.
Closer “This Regrettable End” is another of the few tracks that feels whole both in concept and execution, wiping away the syrup dripping from each note before it lands. I don’t even mind the potential brow-creasing really? reaction to Pennington’s crooned, “Could those strings swell again/Lest mine eyes well instead?” By that point, we’ve forgiven Pennington his effusive, warbling tendencies. It’s all about the mood evoked by the instruments. And it ends the album on a much-needed high note.
The quaint intimacy of Entanglements makes the album sound like just another of the slew of recent indie chamber pop records, but Pennington’s ambitions keep the listener off guard. Even though this is not even close to being a wholly successful album, it is one that benefits from multiple listens. I may not be able to get behind nearly half of the songs on here, but they’re not ignoble failures. Since this is so different than Parenthetical Girls’ last album, Safe Houses (I haven’t heard their debut, though), it can be considered a self-reflective experiment. But he needs to do less tinkering and more conceptualizing. His Girls might have a great record in them sometime in the future, but this one isn’t it.
"Entanglements" is on sale September 9, 2008 from Tomlab.
