Let me start by saying that Lake Street Dive’s Bad Self Portraits is a breath of fresh
air in today’s music scene. I was worried that Mumford and Sons’ unexpected
surge in popularity had saturated the market on “rootsy” music. As much as you
want good bands to get noticed, this type of spike often leads to a whole bunch
of bands with similar sounds getting famous overnight and subsequently getting overplayed
into oblivion. Such was the case with Of Monsters and Men, the Lumineers,
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, the Avett Brothers, etc. It was a damn
shame because they were all clearly talented, but the style was just so
omnipresent that, for me, they lost much of their appeal.
Lake Street Dive deftly sidesteps this trap by pulling their
“rootsy” quality from jazz and soul instead of bluegrass and folk, and boy am I
glad they did, because this album is fantastic. Oddly enough, I’m inclined to
make lyrical comparisons to Jackson Browne, because pretty much every song
deals with heartbreak in some way: love lost, love never found, love that
gradually becomes dysfunctional, love that could easily have happened if only
we were younger and hadn't already fallen for love’s toxic but
oh-so-intoxicating temptation time and time again, you get the point. But each
song certainly paints its own picture; over the length of the album, we are either hearing how a bunch of
different characters grapple with the fleeting nature of romantic relationships, or
we are hearing the story of one person who should probably just call it quits
in the love department.
The only reason Lake Street Dive is able to get away with
these similarities in subject matter is because of their storyteller, the
fabulous Rachael Price. Her voice just has all the right qualities,
particularly for the kind of songs she’s singing. She has power and restraint,
style and technique; she breathes whatever emotion necessary into every song on
the album. In fact, her voice is such a force that one might think the other
three members are just a supporting cast, but don’t be fooled. The band consists of
Price, Mike Olson (guitar, trumpet, piano), Bridget Kearney (upright bass), and
Mike Calabrese (drums), all of whom sing to create some absolutely killer background
vocal arrangements. The four of them met at the New England Conservatory of
Music; they are all classically trained, highly skilled musicians. So while it
does seem as though the musical arrangements are set up to highlight Rachael’s
voice, that’s only because every note is purposeful, and I think that is the mark
of a truly great band, to exercise restraint in the name of the collaborative
effort of the group.
Some particular highlights for me include “Stop Your Crying”,
in which they all sing with enough power to make you think that there is a
gospel choir in the room. I love the
transition from the power in that track to the soft, slow tenderness of “Better
Than.” “You Go Down Smooth” is a really fun track, that has one of lighter
themes of the album, although it does still linger on a bittersweet note: “and I am
too sober not to know, that you may be my problem not my love, cause you go
down smoooooooooth.” I also really like “Seventeen,” the shifting musical
themes really help add to the emotions of the song, of which there are already
plenty thanks to Price and a solid verse from Calabrese. The album’s closer, “Rental
Love,” brought a healthy dose of genuine emotion to a subject that we see much
more often in comedies: casual relationships (e.g. Seinfeld, “the Deal”). I think it features Price’s most passionate
vocals on this entire album, as she sings “When we were having a good time, I
got a little sentimental, the rental of your love was all you would give up,
but I wanted it all, I wanted it all…”
I don’t really have any complaints, except that I would have
liked for songs like “Rental Love” to last a bit longer; it felt a little
cut-off. On future projects, I would love to see Lake Street Dive branch out
into other lyrical (and therefore, musical) concepts, I can’t help but feel
that this band has plenty more muscles to flex, and I, for one, can’t wait to
see what comes when they do.
8.5/10
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