Letter Yellow - Walking Down the Streets

  by Adrian Janes

published: 17 / 9 / 2013

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The publicity accompanying this album primes you for something which “explores life in the streets and crowds of New York City.” Its opening line, on ‘Changed’ (“Walking down the streets in the Lower East Side”), seems to support this, except that you are at once arrested by Randy Bergida’s voice and its startling resemblance to Morrissey, both in the downcast tone on the verses and when he exercises the higher end of his range. His guitarwork too has a certain Marr-like delicacy. Bergida protests, “I don’t wanna change”, but from its low-key beginning the mood of the music rises and shifts into a genuinely uplifting climax that belies the sentiment. A Morrissey influence also seems to underlie ‘Hold Me Steady’. Musically it has a jaunty feel and slight country undertow, but the lyrics are touched by quiet desperation: “Hold me steady/It’s a long way to fall/And tomorrow’s not getting any closer to me.” More experimental in sound, though still slow-paced and wistful, ‘I Can’t Get A’, has treated vocals and more of an edge to the guitar, with bass and synth becoming more prominent in between the verses. These musical passages seem on the verge of striking out for more intense territory, but are abruptly reined in - only two songs on this album go beyond the four-minute mark, suggestive of the pop framework the band operate within, albeit while generally expressing serious feelings. The competent but tepid funk of ‘Hope Street’ (adjectives which also apply later on to the rock and roll of ’14 Bar Blues’) is succeeded by the sprightly, if lyrically awkward, ‘Hooray He’s Not Dead’ with its David Byrne-sque vocals and the celebration of Nature in ‘It’s Monday and I’m Dreaming’. The latter is one of several songs where the New York environment appears to be present only as something to be escaped (“It’s hard to hush a city unless you get outside of it”), an impression heightened by the country air of the music. ‘I Got You’ is something of a slow burning rocker. The typically spare backing on the verses contrasts with some of Bergida’s most committed singing and short bursts of fiercer lead guitar. Ballad ‘Window’ is another song of escape, this time a woman’s via a window into a garden: is this another flight into Nature or just a circumscribed, domesticated version? It’s not clear; the creamy chorus harmonies and shadings of lap steel suggest both idyll and isolation. ‘Out on the Streets’ is one of the songs which comes closest to my initial expectations of the album, with its references to walking and driving round parts of Manhattan, although there’s equally as much about Bergida’s house and hanging out in a cafe. Still, it’s one of the most immediately memorable songs, enlivened by synth and slightly Byrds-like guitar. ‘In the Sun Making Waves’ features some sharper, freer guitar that makes some satisfyingly unexpected moves in the interplay with Abe Pollack’s bass. It shows that the band can push against a framework but still remain within the form: they might surprise themselves if they did this more. The album concludes with ‘Southern Bound’, lyrically seeming to be a song of farewell (“Love is tangling up my heart as I leave this town”), subtly reinforced by Pollack’s melancholy lap steel and of Mike Thies’ muffled tom toms. Despite the New York references the lyrics are also full of the language of Nature (sun, water, sand, wind), and though there’s affection for the city, at least a couple of the songs and Bergida’s general singing style hint at a desire to get away. Overall it’s a reasonably pleasing and well-played listen- wherever you happen to live.

Track Listing:-

1 I Can't Get A
2 Hope Street
3 Hooray He's Not Dead
4 It's Monday and I'm Dreaming
5 I Got You
6 Window
7 Out On the Streets
8 14 Bar Blues
9 In the Sun Making Waves
10 Southern Bound

Band Links:-

http://www.theletteryellow.net/
https://www.facebook.com/theletteryellow
https://twitter.com/TheLetterYellow/
http://www.songkick.com/artists/5678794-letter-yellow
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLetterYellow

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