Slow Learner - "In Their Time They Are Magnificent"

Slow Learner - White Walls (Self-released 2007)

Slow Learner - In Their Time They Are Magnificent / Self-released

If you've been sitting alone in your room rocking back and forth in breathless anticipation for TV on the Radio's deluxe greatest hits package Desperate Youth, Cooke Mountain (with bonus DVD featuring Kyp Malone getting a haircut and an interview with David Bowie's doorman!), now is a good time to emerge from your solitude for a little natural light and the opportunity to hear Tunde Adebimpe's Essential Soul vocals once more. Except, sike: It's not Adebimpe at all. It's the ambitious Michael Napolitano that does all the work on In Their Time They Are Magnificent. The result is a striking, melodic release that's over a year old and is still gaining steam. Let this be Audiversity's coal to keep the locomotive running.

The TV on the Radio comparison was what originally got my attention, because on tracks like the grand opener "Retreasion" and the chummy "Martyr" that follows, you'd swear it was Tunde guesting on vocals. And considering that Napolitano recorded guitars, drums, piano, bass, organ, pump organ, accordion, melodica, harmonica and percussion for these songs, you'd think he wouldn't have time for lyrics and melodies that are begging to be stuck in your head all day. Not so; from the outside, you could say Napolitano's a czar, determined to keep lesser musicians out of the studio. I think it's more that if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself. Mulvaney and Blue Man Group member Larry Hienemann stopped in during recording, but otherwise Napolitano took care of things by locking himself in a studio and learning instruments beyond his native drums. It doesn't show. This album is exquisitely presented and brilliantly sequenced.

The most attractive part of the album emerges quickly: Piano. Tinkled ivory is a good way to win over a crowd, but Slow Learner is a band with a sound built on piano. No matter how many other instruments may horn in on something like the gorgeous "White Walls," it's the piano that carries these songs. The art and the balance of this album is that you feel like a fast learner next to Napolitano as he plays the simple half-speed jaunts of "Martyr" or "Look at Your Shoes." These are melodies that sound so simple and basic, and okay, they're no Rachmaninov piece. But the guitars (or the accordion, or the harmonica, or...) bring you in to a song, engage you directly, make you feel like you're at a My Morning Jacket concert or catching an intimate Low Skies show.

This is the other intriguing bit about Slow Learner's approach, the lyrics of love and loss notwithstanding. If you want a really reductive way of describing this band to someone, imagine TV on the Radio gone alt-country in a good way. Another modern reference point is M. Ward, and in fact Napolitano himself has noted Neil Young on occasion. Merge Records. Lucero. Springsteen. Whatever, there are so many reference points that descriptions themselves become redundant. The only solution is actually listening to this album, because it's the only way you'll fully be able to appreciate Napolitano's dedication. Why is this band still unsigned?

Interestingly, while Napolitano has made an album for the post-9/11 world, politics play a secondary role to the greatness of the music. More than anything else, this is an album of catharsis. It doesn't matter what your personal tragedy might be, Slow Learner has made an album for the immediate aftermath. It's dark, but it's also a door brimming with light on the other side. Which side you choose to stay on when it's over is up to you.