There's a moment on Dean Chandler’s debut when you find yourself thinking, “an Emmylou Harris harmony would fit in perfectly hereâ€. Yet when Harris does step up to the mic it is a shock. Not that her singing is out of character with the track’s swirling country-Celtic tones; simply that one of the most identifiable voices on the planet is gracing the music of a nonentity from New Zealand. How did it happen?
Chandler was previously one half of pop duo Before Friday, who disappeared after a couple of singles earlier this decade. His relaunch as a solo artist has been spectacular. First coup was securing the production services of Brady Blade, the US drummer who toured here as a Harris sideman in 2001. Blade called in favours, not only from his former employer but also Norah Jones and Dylan guitarist Larry Campbell, all of whom have helped make the disc feel like a classy US import.
Mostly, though, it is Blade who can be thanked for the album’s flashiness. With his own drums to the fore, he has constructed the kind of shimmering soundscapes found in the productions of Daniel Lanois (U2, Bob Dylan) or the recent albums of Harris (produced by Lanois offsider Malcolm Burn). It is epic, widescreen stuff.
To Chandler’s credit, he doesn’t allow himself to be dwarfed by such grand sonic architecture. He holds his ground with a tough, tuneful tenor, always reserving that extra bit of breath for his big choruses.
If anything, it’s the songs themselves that are slight. Sure, Chandler takes on some heavyweight subjects, including his fight with cancer in the powerful “Killer in My Lifeâ€. But his language can be vague and colourless and, at worst, he slips into greeting-card couplets. (“If life is a tide/Then we’re out in the sea.â€)
And yet Chandler has an intuitive sense of popcraft. Hooky verse leads to even hookier chorus, so that the words, in the end, become just something to hang an irresistible melody on.
In many ways Damien Binder tills the same turf as Chandler; another ex-band man with a bunch of tuneful true-life confessions, a sensitive strummer searching for a home in a digital world. Til Now is the second disc he’s made since he broke up his band, Auckland rockers Second Child, to focus on his songs and singing.
In contrast to Blade’s expansive palette, Binder’s production team – Aucklanders Steve Garden and Bob Shepheard – keep things crisp and economical. Tasteful splashes of Hammond organ augment their drums and bass and Binder and Shepheard’s well-woven electric and acoustic guitars. At times their root-pop resembles a less raggedy Paul Westerberg, or early Crowded House.
Like Chandler’s, Binder’s lyrics might be the difference between good and great pop. You hear clichés such as “up against a brick wall†or “keeping you at arm’s length†and hope to find them twisted and transformed – something Dave Dobbyn is excellent at doing. Yet too often Binder is content to let them be.
Still, he has some heart-melting melodies and an achingly melodic voice. And if Til Now doesn’t sustain the maturity its best moments hint at, it stands alongside Dean Chandler as a confident example of the kind of grown-up pop record this country could use more of.
