Review: Woodpigeon entices listeners

Hailing from the Great White North, Calgary-based collective Woodpigeon adds to the popular trend of mellowed out and slightly ‘folked-up’ indie rock with their sixth album “Thumbtacks + Glue”, which comes out Tuesday.

As noted above, Woodpigeon is a musician collective centered around singer-songwriter Mark Hamilton, who uses a revolving door of musicians to put out his own brand of music that hearkens to Grizzly Bear, Belle and Sebastian, Bright Eyes and shades of The Decemberists, though Hamilton says his biggest influence is The Kinks.

The album opens with “The Saddest Music in the World,” which is, as one might imagine, is quite melancholy but also soothing. An example of this can be found in the lyrics in the middle verse, “From dusty shells and cold black rooms, they lie and wait but no one comes, I’ve lost the tune forgot the words, prevent myself just for the worst,” which speak of loss and rejection but with a honeyed delivery of the Hamilton’s croons and the background harmonies.

The melancholy continues with “Red Rover, Red Rover,” which uses the format of the classic children’s game to show that the subject is not over a lost lover, but at the same time, not quite ready to get back together with that person. Confusing, but it sounds nice with some chamber pop-influenced music in the background.

The album shows its rock side with the fourth track, “Children Should Be Seen and Not Heard,” which makes use of distorted and fuzzy guitar and bass tracks as well as a driving drum line that work together to give the song a slightly more heavy sound. That being said, the song is still fairly gentle, but overall it’s a pleasing change of pace in the album.

However, in case you were ready for a more straightforward and upbeat streak of tracks, the fifth song “Little Wings,” becomes the archetype of a slow song, with the verse sang in a women’s soft voice and with little more than light trilling of a guitar in the background. The chorus, which is quite sad in and of itself, is sung by Hamilton and goes a little like this: “Love causes pain, but it comes to me and it falls on me.” The music does pick up a little bit in the last minute or so of the song, but not by much.  In other words, it would be the perfect song to run behind a tender break-up scene in a romantic comedy.

“Sufferin’ Suckatash,” which could only be a nod to Sylvester of Looney Tunes fame, completely surprises the listener, who might expect a whimsical song from such a whimsical title, but is instead treated to a swelling song of someone on the run from and in nature.  There is a nice shift in tempo, from slow to quite fast, in the latter half of the five-and- half-minute track.

The seventh track, “Robin Song,” tells the tale of a messy break-up from both perspectives in the first two verses of the song with only Hamilton and a guitar in the background. The choruses and the bridge convey the general feeling of regret and anger with the effect of the full band coming in and adding a layer of heavy melancholy. Overall, it’s likely the best track on the album for its diverse range of musical qualities.

“Edinburgh” starts off with a very classical music approach that abruptly switches to a more Latin-western inspired track that then mixes the two in the chorus of vocal harmonies. It’s nice counter-balance to the slower start of the album and groups well the two preceding tracks to make a nice microcosm of upbeat emotive music.

The penultimate track, “Hermit,” follows a similar approach to “Children Should Be Seen and Not Heard,” with a slower beginning and then more dynamic ending, although in this track’s case, there is a longer and more drawn-out buildup to an almost live-jam-like ending.  In other words, it makes good background noise.

The album ends with the title track, which has a very slow but relentless pace. It takes the theme of sadness and melancholy in the album and adds yet another variety: a seeming shade of someone contemplating some kind of escape, either as a runaway or perhaps suicide, with references to no dry eyes and buying earth.  It’s a sonically pleasing close of a mostly interesting album; with more of the now-standard slow then fast approach that Hamilton and Co. take to song composition.

Musically, the album is nice to listen to and provides a pleasing spectrum of music to indulge the listener. However, more than a cursory listen to the lyrics would tend to leave the casual listener more than a little gloomy. For anyone going through some heavy emotional times, though, this album would make a pleasing companion. Just pick up some tissues as well.