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Peter Walker Landed Dangerbird

      After a few listens I had to ask myself, "Does this sound like Beck, R.E.M., and Wilco, with an air of Air floating over it?" 'No.' But, granted, it shouldn't. I do, however, feel that it should sound like Jay Bennett, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, and Joey Waronker, with a guy I've never heard of making some really cool music, but I'm not so sure it does. The songs are a little too dry to be this group of musical minds. I could see these guys getting together and wanting to put all of their past creations aside and just serve the music of Peter Walker to not overshadow him on his own album, but I just think it all ends up a little to close to the boring side of things.

      While there are a few highlights and mixtape hopefuls on the album, I can't really say that it goes much further for me. Whether I expected too much out of the parties involved or just flat out don't get the cut of Peter Walker's proverbial "jib," my instinctual reaction is to listen to this record more in pieces to see what each player is up to and how it compares to what I've been previously privied to. The disc clocks in at just a nose hair under forty-one minutes (almost literally, if that's even possible) and in my opinion (ok, ok if I must, it's 40:56) that's just too short of an album for me to get bored with.

      Right off the bat, the songs on Landed are catchy and its easy to nod along, but eventually a point is reached where the catchiness ends and the stretching begins to wear through where the former wore out. Once you get used to Walker's scratchy voice, you can't help but think he's trying a little too hard. You liked it when he asked, "Are you lying when you talk to yourself? Do you see someone else," however, you tire of hearing him explain that, "I dreamed I went to Pluto, it was a long plane ride." Both are first lines of songs, the first has an air of intrigue about it, but once he proclaims that, "We were kind of disappointed, nothing seemed right. It (Pluto) was like a foreign city, but there was no one around, only people that worked there." His voice is flat and the music is too dull and/or straight-laced to make this a convincing tune.

      It is my understanding that Jay Bennett (aside from being immensely and diversely adept at making good music) can have a tendency to take over control in a recording situation. (Stories of Summerteeth's creation can really hit the ground running). But I would have to think that with the stature of the aforementioned production staffing and the surrounding musical assemblage that he may have just been a role player on this production. Coincidentally, that suits Mr. Bennett's sound just fine. I guess it's possible that the other guys took that same stance and ended up with an album of role players and no room for anything to really stand out and "Wow 'em!" Waronker and Tony Hoffer are both on Beck's "Midnite Vultures" for God's sake and while I understand that these are two completely different musical situations, something's gotta give here. I need to realize why this album doesn't punch me in the gut somewhere along the way. The guys come dangerously close to delivering a good shot to the tummy on the sonically tweaked, 808 infrared beam induced sounds of the slow mover "Gone Away," but by track 10 its just too late.

      For all of the Cool that this album has, and it most certainly has quite a few Cool attributes (the paunchy reggae of "Please," for one), things just become too bland and same-sounding for me to say that I am actually pulled in by this record. It seems as though the only thing separating Peter Walker from every other musician drawing from the same heap is his voice. While a bit gruff but still melodic and relatable, nothing about this singer or these lyrics makes me want to stick around through all 11 songs. The pre-release liner notes call up a comparison to E of The Eels and while I can immediately make the connection I can also dial in all of the things that make The Eels music work so well. It comes from so many different directions, it’s interesting, dense even. The music of Peter Walker just isn't that thick.

      Maybe next time Walker will enlist a different slew of heroes and they will do something that makes me realize what I missed this time out, I will probably tune in regardless just to see what happens more so because I can't understand why I don't really like the simplicity of --Landed--. Would I tell someone to check this album out? Definitely, I could use the discussion. Would I personally recommend this album? No, I'd say listen to the song on my mixtape.

-Joel Armato 10/29/04