Kelman - Is This How It Ends ?

  by John Clarkson

published: 24 / 8 / 2007

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Review

Perfection when it comes is but brief and it can never be repeated. Wayne Gooderham knows that. Every one of his autobiographical lyrics, both with his former band Baptiste and also in his current group Kelman, have told of just a few moments in his life, and have found him focusing, like Raymond Carver who with his characters travelled a similar territory, on an event, which while sometimes small in itself, has nevertheless to him had an all-consuming importance. ‘Is This How It Ends ?’, Kelman ‘s third and first download only single, is no exception to his, telling of the exact point when Gooderham decided a relationship had to end. While Wayne Gooderham’s literary heroes include, as well as Carver, such modern realistic writers as Charles Bukowski, John Fante and band namesake James Kelman, his musical heroes are the likes of the Velvet Underground, Galaxie 500 and the Go-Betweens. ‘Is This How It Ends ?’ is magnificent. A surging garage rock number, slightly rawer in sound than previous Kelman numbers, it begins with the hammering, clipped noise of Gooderham’s guitar, to which his brother and drummer Marc soon adds hard tom-tom beats and keyboardist Paul Ragsdale provides a see-sawing, tingling organ. All three instruments push up tensely against each other, scrapping for dominance, before coming together in a surging frenzy at the song’s conclusion at which point, in a sharp twist and with stark, heart-wrenching honesty, Gooderham delivers the final pay-off, the real reason why the relationship can go no further- “And when you got dressed and came back bed/it was the most beautiful thing you ever did/and we can’t have that time again/and so I’m ready now/and this how it ends,” The B side, ‘Postcards’, is a reworking of an old Baptiste song, which originally appeared in a demo version on a compilation CD. It is softer and more melancholic in sound than ‘Is This How It Ends ?’ and an echoing and ethereal-sounding mix of funereal drum beats, whispering cymbals and haunted guitar and organ lines. “I love you” Gooderham sings with a desperate vulnerability over and over at the end, but it a confession which has come too late. “Too much truth can take it toll” and “I am too scared to fly in case you hear my heart beating” he has admitted earlier and, in another sharp plot turn, the relationship is already long over. Achingly real and honest, Gooderham and Kelman have created with these two songs and latest single a record of spine tingling and naked truths and music which has its own unconventional universality.

Track Listing:-

1 Is This How It Ends?
2 Postcards