Review Summary: Stop me if you've heard this before.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: upper-middle-class suburbanite goes to college for liberal arts/music, drops out because school seems “so arbitrary” and “confining,” wanders around New York City/Los Angeles and falls in with [insert influential behind-the-scenes indie musician], who gets them an in with the record industry and voila! – somewhat-talented 20-something gets a record deal and becomes a singer-songwriter! As one could probably guess, up-and-coming folk artists are a dime a dozen in the indie scene nowadays, often falling through the blogosphere cracks just as fast as they rise, and transplanted-by-way-of-NYC Oregonian (Portland) Trevor Giuliani fits the bill perfectly.
A member of Sufjan Stevens’ touring band was Giuliani’s in, and producer Dean Baltulonis (the Hold Steady, Darker My Love) helms Subcontrario, a politely catchy little slice of indie folk with the occasional burst of rock an more than a few flashes of inspiration. Sufjan isn’t too bad of an immediate approximation to begin with; Trevor’s mild tenor calls to mind Stevens as well as similarly themed artists like Andrew Bird, and his wordy folk has a flair for the instrumental dramatic, as the violins on “Settled Bounds” and the woodwinds on “Worms & Reptiles” testify.
From the first few minutes of opener “Big Decisions,” however, Giuliani comes off as nothing special, a strummer with a pleasing, everyday voice and pseudo-spoken word vocals, meandering about a verse and chorus spouting off lyrics that I found hard to care about. Then something fantastic happens. The crescendo only hinted at in the beginning finally takes off, Giuliani’s previously lackluster vocals assume an identity of their own, and the tired folk guitar is supplanted with a crashing drum intro and a ringing piano as synths scrabble in the background. The song ends up soaring, an electric guitar spelling out notes to a resounding end.
It’s surprising, and Giuliani refuses to let the energy flag. Obvious first single “Wasting Your Town” is a bouncy piano ditty that takes off with the best hook of the record in the chorus, a jittery electric riff replete with tasty handclaps. “Settled Bounds” brings out the unavoidable string section, but the cheery keyboard accompaniment and Giuliani’s reflective vocals manage to keep the sap down.
After a strong start, unfortunately, Giuliani falls down into the folk singer’s rut – a series of slow, barely interesting ballads that bog down the album’s midsection and bring nothing but the world-weary musings of a dime store poet, one who doesn’t yet have the credibility nor the lyrical talent to sustain himself. “Van Singing” is an exercise in emotional atmosphere, mired in all sorts of airy effects but ruined by its six-minute length and drab lyrics, while songs like “Worms & Reptiles” and “Today” might have the occasional interesting moment (Hark! A wind instrument! Are those female backing vocals I hear??), but they go nowhere as songs and Giuliani’s Leonard Cohen imitation can get grating.
Indeed, Giuliani’s lyrics remain fairly standard throughout, save for the quirky and entirely baffling “Nubian Forest,” and his don’t-give-a-damn attitude when it comes to vocals is a hit-or-miss proposition. Luckily, he comes up big when it counts the most, with the wonderfully exuberant “Janessa” injecting some much-needed life into the proceedings before the requisitely-long epic “Predicated Ground” closes things out. It’s a sort of microcosm of the record in whole, starting quietly but promisingly before losing itself a bit in the middle and then righting the ship with a proper dose of multi-tracked harmonies and a fulfilling climax.
That being said, it’s a track that could easily have been cut down to a more manageable five minutes, and the same could be said for much of Subcontrario. Giuliani does his best to distinguish himself from other folk singers of the more studio-friendly stripe, and while his arrangement talents and ear for a hook or charming turn of phrase are clearly his fortes, his decision-making skills and charisma could use a little work. It’s not easy being a folk singer in this day and age, but with a little work (and, hopefully, some fire), Trevor Giuliani could step out from his influences and start making his own shadow.
