HIGH BIAS -- lead review

HOWIE BECK
Hollow
(Devil in the Woods/Future Farmer)
NIK FREITAS
Here's Laughing at You
(Future Farmer)
ANDY STOCHANSKY
Five Star Motel
(Private/RCA Victor)
Back in the early 70s, singer/songwriters ruled. Introspective, sensitive young males like James Taylor and Jackson Browne combined the melodicism of the Beatles, the simplicity of folk music and the insights (take that word however you want) garnered from hours of navel-gazing for a new breed of rock and pop that gracefully crossed party lines of popularity between the counterculture and the establishment. (Female songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro were prominent around the same time, but for some reason didn't gain the commercial success the dudes did, despite being quite often artistically superior to their male counterparts.) Though the genre's commercial fortunes wax and wane, depending on the contemporary musical landscape, singer/songwriters are always a fixture, either bubbling under the pop charts (Duncan Sheik, David Mead) or finding success by re-naming their art something like "adult contemporary" or "alternative country" (Mason Jennings, Josh Rouse). Most just stay the course of their artistic muse, putting their feelings on staff paper and pouring their hearts into their latest combination of chords, in the hopes that someone, somewhere will understand.

Of the latest crop of tortured young men, Toronto's Howie Beck stands tallest, despite staying in his bedroom. Beck recorded Hollow on 4- and 8-track in his apartment, playing all the instruments himself, which accounts for the sedate sound of the record. This is definitely music recorded so as not to wake up the neighbors. Not that there's anything wrong with that, especially when it suits the tunes so well. Beck weaves lush melodies into a thick tapestry of hushed melancholy as masterfully as king of pop gloom Joe Pernice (maybe a little too masterfully—"She Moves (Rosie)" is practically a tribute to the Pernice Brothers, though Beck would no doubt prefer the term "homage"). Gorgeous tracks like "I Won't Be Sorry," "The One You Wanted" and "Baby Plays Around on Me" find something beautiful in resignation by framing it with plush guitar/keyboard arrangements and Beck's soft vocals. He rocks things up occasionally, as in the ultra-catchy, uptempo "Serves You Right" and "What You Found," but the slow and sad is his real stock-in-trade here, and he wallows in self-pity gracefully. Hollow may live in the dark but it shines brightly.

A photographer from the magazine Thrasher and occasional drummer for the group For Stars, Nik Freitas finds his inspiration less in what we think of as typical singer/songwriters and more in pop and psychedelia on his debut album Here's Laughing at You. Freitas and partner Aaron Estes put Beatlesque melodies through a haze of brittle guitars, warm electric piano and clattering percussion for a tactile mixture of traditional melodicism and indie rock sensibilities. Songs like "Faucets and Drawings" and "Picture of the Sun" sound like they're being performed right in the room with you, while more intimate tracks like "Same Old Song" and the lovely "All the Time in the World" might as well be whispered in your ear. Like Beck, Freitas wears his heart on his sleeve much of the time, though the intricate patterns of his shirt often deliberately obscure the shape and color of that organ. Despite the album title, Freitas never sneers or insults the objects at which his songs are aimed, giving Here's Laughing at You the warmth expected from any good singer/songwriter.

Andy Stochansky (another Toronto resident) motors a different road than Beck and Freitas, at least sonically. On his third album Five Star Motel, the former Ani DiFranco drummer eschews the intimate, homemade sound of indie rock for a widescreen production aura that wouldn't sound out of place on the radio (if radio was playing anything but teenybopper pop and nü-metal, that is). The opening pair "Stutter" and "Paris" work their shimmerpop grooves into large, airy arrangements that could just as easily be sung along to in an arena as on the car radio. This doesn't mean Stochansky makes his music for mass consumption, simply that this is the sound he likes. More sedate tracks like "One Day" and "Here Nor There" feature Stochansky crooning as if barely able to suppress his disappointment in a relationship not working out. Only the cheesy "Wonderful (It's Superman)," with its hip-hop rhythms and rock guitars, verges on blatantly commercial. His melodies become a bit samey over the course of an entire record, but at his best, Stochansky merges heartfelt passion and radio-ready production into an emotional pop juggernaut that would make no ashamed to listen to the radio.

Whether or not any of these record appeal to you depends, of course, on your tolerance for finding a beating heart stapled to a colorful sleeve. If intimate confessions wedded to luscious melodies is your cup of steaming hot, marshmallow-flavored cocoa, Howie Beck, Nik Freitas and Andy Stochansky have the kettle boiling for you. Michael Toland

For fans of:
Howie Beck: Pernice Brothers, the Chamber Strings, Nick Drake
Nik Freitas: Built To Spill, Songs:Ohia, M. Ward
Andy Stochansky: 90s U2, Coldplay, Jude