The River, the fourth full-length album by
Adrian Orange, or
Thanksgiving, finds the singer experimenting with the idea of playing with a full band behind him, instead of just his guitar. This doesn't mean that the album has an over-produced, full sound. In fact, it's anything but. Even with the added mandolin, electric guitar, and percussion,
Thanksgiving manages to maintain his lo-fi, empty feel. It comes across well: "Storyteller" is one of the best songs on the album, and is very reminiscent of the Seattle grunge scene or
the Pixies. But for
Thanksgiving, the music is only a background for his words. The simple, repetitive chords, slow bass notes, and lagging drum are just the frames for his lyrics. He alludes often to nature, both positively and negatively (it unites the characters in parts one and two of "Me and You," but it also separates and even injures them), and the difference between the physical world and the human one, ultimately snubbing the latter ("I take no responsibility to be a part of the world as shown/But I take full responsibility to burn with the sun," he sings in "Responsibility"), or at least resigning himself, in the closer, "Oh Well," to the fact that some things don't make sense. For better or for worse, this lack of sense is apparent on the rest of the album, as
Thanksgiving sometimes tries a little too hard lyrically, falling prey to the Venus flytrap of Dadaism, focusing more on alliteration and consonance rather than actual significance. This doesn't take away from the record as a whole, necessarily, but it definitely prevents it from being what it could be, and from putting
Thanksgiving up in the ranks of the folksingers he clearly idolizes. ~ Marisa Brown