The Dirty Projectors - "Rise Above"

The Dirty Projectors - Rise Above (Dead Oceans 2007)

The Dirty Projectors - Rise Above / Dead Oceans

When I saw The Dirty Projectors play with Hella last November, the name was familiar thanks to their recent signing with Dead Oceans and I had heard a song or two from their LP The Getty Address. The performance was solid and I thanked them for playing, but an innocent chat and brief handshake did not transmit anything special. Maybe Dave Longstreth had no idea where he was going to go next at that point, or maybe Rise Above was already fully formed in his head. Whatever the timing, no one beyond maybe Longstreth himself could've anticipated the palpable excitement and widespread curiosity that's been simmering in lieu of the announcement that Longstreth had attempted to record Black Flag's Damaged from memory. On the other hand, this is a dude who has seen musical inspiration in finches. The point: One of the most intriguing efforts of the year is here. So what do we make of it?

"What I See" is the start of a long, strange journey. In fact, at 45 minutes, it is nearly ten minutes longer than the source material. When you have a track like "Spray Paint (The Walls)" at about four times the length of the original, the explanation for these albums being so close together is that Longstreth simply forgot "T.V. Party," "Damaged I," "Damaged II," "Padded Cell," and "Life Of Pain." That said, there is a bonus untitled song at the end nearly four minutes in length. It doesn't feel out of place among the, er, "covers."

Interpretations is a better way of putting it, actually. It's really interesting to hear how a guy whose favorite instruments are the piccolo and the double bass can go back in his memory bank and try to produce listenable arrangements for an audience more in tune with The Arcade Fire and Bishop Allen than The Minutemen and Saccharine Trust. A very different experience altogether, so much so that comparing these songs to the source material is spiritual and nominal at best.

Instead, The Dirty Projectors' Rise Above must be judged on its own merit. One of the reasons this album sounds better than any other this band has put out has very little to do with Black Flag and everything to do with a steadying line-up. Longstreth is the only constant in the band's history, but now with touring hands Angel Deradoorian (It's Armenian, and she's not actually credited on the record), Amber Coffman and Brian McOmber, Dave has with him a competent group of young musicians looking to stake their claim on the freshly laid turf of Dead Oceans.

They're demonstrating it best on songs where the vocals (always one of the best parts of a Dirty Projectors record) can shine. Blast beats and windmills? Go play somewhere else. We're talking one-one-one-one-ones and Yellow Houses. This means "Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie," and the undulating "Depression," and the orchestral manipulations of "No More." Speaking of Grizzly Bear, fellow Brooklynite and suspenders aficionado Chris Taylor lends his production skills to great effect here. He's able to let Longstreth's wandering vocals and the girls' backup complement the music without letting one or the other dominate. Polished? Let's just say Taylor sounds like he nailed what the band was going for.

It's always nice to imagine that a band like The Dirty Projectors, who have never sounded like Black Flag and carry with them a very different audience from the inspiration to this record, have the potential not only to reach out to kids with the four bars tattooed on their arms, but enlighten their own on another History, a History where Damaged leads to Incesticide leads to Siamese Dream leads to Ships and back again; maybe there's something to that title, then. Rise Above is the sound of convergence in the 21st century, the sound of one man's musical evolution turning around on itself and doing a self-assessment. Imagining a world where everyone understands that growing beyond Black Flag doesn't mean having to stop loving them might be naive, but Rise Above is as convincing an argument as you're likely to find.