Chris Walla
Field Manual
(Barsuk)
Death Cab for Cutie guitarist/producer Chris Walla takes a swing at the solo life via 12 songs produced with unlikely cohort Warne Livesey, whose work with Matthew Good sounded huge and a bit bombastic, the opposite of Death Cab’s refined indie-pop. With Tegan & Sara’s The Con, Walla established himself as a smart knob-twiddler; here he goes out on a limb with deftly drawn love songs and plaintive pleas to the US president. His voice is breathy and wan, but gets better in the second half, especially on “Our Plans, Collapsing” and “St. Modesto.” This is neither an embarrassing nor a notable outing.
Tara Thorne
This article appears in Mar 27 – Apr 2, 2008.