Vigilantes of Love

Item: Summershine
Author: Michial Farmer

Summershine

(2001)

Reviewed by Michial Farmer

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Label Compass RecordsHM Magazine #92November/December 2001

alternative rock americana folk rock jangle pop

The music of Vigilantes of Love has always sounded like Georgia. Bill Mallonee obviously has the state flowing through his veins -- and those not familiar with the geography of the 'Jewel of the South' will have to bear with me for a few sentences -- be it the South-of-Macon winter depression of Killing Floor, the shiny springtime Athens vibe of Blister Soul, or the leaf-burning Appalachian autumn that so inhabits Audible Sigh. With the other three seasons already covered, it'd be good for my occupation if I could say that Summershine sounds like, say, Atlanta in the middle of August.

Alas, this was not to be.

Summershine sounds exactly like you'd think it would from the title. VOL, like Wilco and the Old 97's before them, have traded in their Merle Haggard and Uncle Tupelo records for the chiming 60s sounds of the Beatles and the Byrds. And thus, while the album definitely fits into August, Georgia is much too humid a locale for these songs -- they deserve somewhere lighter, somewhere cooler, somewhere without all the emotional water in the air. I'm thinking Northern California.

With all this sun-and-fun atmosphere, one might think that Mallonee's lyrics might have lightened up a bit. Make no mistake, though: while the lyrics have that starry-eyed hope the frontman acquired somewhere between Slow Dark Train and To the Roof of the Sky..., there's just as many scars, cuts and abrasions in them. "We're all wrecked up on these dreams," he wails in the album-opening "You Know That," but then licks the wound with "You and me could build a bridge over everything that hurts." Elsewhere, he claims, "It's not bothering me," but it becomes more than evident that it is -- "I understand, catch your drift / It's not exactly like it's something you could miss / As hollow as the sea inside my heart."

Something feels wrong, though. Usually, Mallonee's ballads are his finest moments ("Blister Soul Reprise," "Judas Skin," "On the Verge"), but here, it's the rockers that are oozing transcendence: that bouncing 6/8 piano in "Stand Beside Me," the Peter Buck / Roger McGuinn jangles that drive "You Know That," and the spirit (if not the letter) of 1980s U2 that is channeled into "Puttin' Out Fires." But the ballads are not all there. "Galaxy," for example, can't quite get past its own earnestness, and the mellotrons and chimes cluttering its arrangement don't help anything. I think that the last track, "Sailors," hits his vision a bit more squarely, but I can't make up my mind -- it still feels like it's missing a crucial piece somewhere.

It is easy to overlook, though. It has been two years since VOL put out a new album, and for the most part, it's been well worth the wait. Summershine is another in a long string of artistic successes for Mallonee and his (at last!) stable lineup.