Amy Millan
Masters of the Burial
Rating: 2.5/5.0
Label: Arts & Crafts
Amy Millan (of both Stars and Canadian supergroup/music collective Broken Social Scene) has produced her sophomore solo effort, Masters of the Burial and not surprisingly, it doesn’t share much of a sound with her group releases. That’s not terribly unusual- solo records from an artist usually associated with a group (or two) often deliberately try to depart from expectations. What is more surprising is that Millan’s choice of sound and mood should turn out quite so forgettable.
Masters of the Burial is drenched in an almost-folky, not-quite rootsy tone; it’s all fiddles and gently strummed guitars. You can practically see these songs being played on a porch in high sunlight, Millan wearing a summer dress perhaps. And there’s nothing particularly wrong with that, except that it’s such a polished, clean sound that it begins to oppose the medium; this sort of music thrives on closeness and authenticity, and this album is clearly deliberately worked. Spontaneity makes for some great music, and removing that often drains an element that’s difficult to put into words. That said, Masters is an undeniably pretty record. Millan’s voice, as ever, is breathy and delicate, sometimes almost sounding spoken rather than sung. Moments in songs that could become almost too saccharine (for example, the repeated closing refrain of “Low Sails:” “I’ll find my way back to you,“) manage to become touching and warm through her girlish vocals. The instrumentation, heavy on strings and slow, quiet drums are all always perfectly in place- though just a little too much so.
The opener “Bruised Ghosts” is so perfectly representative of the rest of the album that it might as well be its entirety. Ethereal strings, a gently plunked piano and Millan singing lyrics like “You have it all/ Broken apart/ Follow through/ With your bruises” all repeat themselves in variations throughout Masters- it’s pretty mock-roots. Songs like “Day to Day,” which breaks from the formula with its spare drums and simplicity, or “Run For Me,” with its echoing, reverb-y guitars work much better than the rest of the fiddle-soaked album. In particular, the cover of Death Cab for Cutie’s “I Will Follow You into the Dark” is unnecessarily swamped in lap steel and plucked guitars, ending up sounding like an idea of folkiness, not the actual thing.
If this was all poorly executed, Masters would probably be an awful album. As it is, the undeniable talent and charm of Millan and her backing musicians manage to pull it off at least some of the time. She’s managed to create a very pretty album, just not a memorable one.
by Nathan Kamal
