Tear in the Fabric

Devon Williams went through a lot of turmoil, both personally and musically, during the four years it took to make his fourth album Tear in the Fabric. The death of his father and the birth of his first child, plus a painstaking mixing process that took almost two years, could have led to a choppy, emotion-wracked album that would have stood out from his previous catalog like a sore thumb. Somehow he manages to bottle things up enough to come through with his slickest, most musically satisfying album yet. Previous albums have been gleamingly clean and filled with chiming guitars, soft synths, and Williams easy-going croon; on this record everything feels like it was turned up a notch. The arrangements feel buffed to a nearly blinding brightness, the guitars flutter and float like the Church in their prime, and Williams vocals take up more emotional space in the center of the songs instead of fitting in smoothly as just another piece of the mosaic. It helps that theres a jolt of energy added to many of the songs that gives the jangle some bite. Out of Time is an insistent track that could have been on Wire Trains classic In a Chamber album, Followed Me Back rumbles and ripples like a moody Church single, and the drums and dynamic shifts of Circus World approach new wave perfection. These more uptempo entries balance the midtempo, melancholy songs that make up the bulk of the album. Williams truly shines when digging deep into the shades of grey, and the newly honed melodies and hooks bring them alive in ways that he came close to on previous albums, but never quite nailed quite as impressively. He captures a very downcast, thoughtful mood thats never gloomy or bleak thanks to how catchy the hooks are and how sparkling the guitars are. In his sure hands, soft and sad tracks like In Babylon and Slow Motion feel like little rays of sunshine. He even uses the time-honored trick of spiking some of his deepest, most thoughtful lyrics with the most sophisticated arrangement; Domesticated balances heavy thoughts with a melody and arrangements worthy of Steve McQueen-era Prefab Sprout. That level of pop genius is a heady target to aim for; more often than not Williams comes within an eyelash of hitting it and the result is that Tear in the Fabric would fit nicely on a shelf next to Steve McQueen or Lloyd Cole and the Commotions Rattlesnakes or the Churchs Starfish. ~ Tim Sendra