A shared effort between producer/musician Brent Knopf of
Menomena and
Ramona Falls and singer/songwriter and
Ramona Falls touring member Matt Sheehy,
DRRT finds solid ground between Knopf's fractured yet graceful production style and Sheehy's wistful melodies and enigmatic prose. It's a surprisingly solid and lived-in-sounding debut that delivers its charms like an extended-release painkiller, rewarding those listeners with the patience to wait out some of its sleepier moments, most of which ("Through Your Bones," "Wonderful World," "Dead Moon") arrive late in the album. While Knopf's idiosyncratic production style will be instantly recognizable to those in the know,
DRRT is ultimately Sheehy's baby, and his rich, form-fitting voice, which falls somewhere between the earthy croon of
Fleet Foxes frontman Robin Pecknold and the laconic Midwest drawl of
Andrew Bird, provides as much atmosphere as it does lyrical content on standout cuts like "Cold Feet," "Gossamer," and "Afraid of Summer." A heady mix of indie chamber folk and
Shearwater/early
Peter Gabriel-inspired AOR pop, "Your Name Is a Fire" and, to a lesser extent, "Belly of the Bird/Valentina" introduce subtle percussive and creative yet unobtrusive electronic elements into the mix, wrapping Sheehy's impressionistic words in a light rain of synths and late-night handclaps that makes the songs sound weightier than they actually are. In fact, much of
DRRT feels that way at first, but multiple spins do a great deal of good in revealing the many complexities that reside within Sheehy and Knopf's first outing under the
Lost Lander moniker. ~ James Christopher Monger