Beirut - The Rip Tide (Pompeii)
4/5
By: Joe Daniels
After the Mexican sun-stained boisterousness of 2009’s March of the Zapotec/Realpeople Holland collection of EPs, Zach Condon once again records under the moniker ‘Beirut’, to create an album that is travelled, tempered, and tantamount to the best thing he’s done yet.
A musician capable of simultaneous mournfulness and magnificence, Condon proves once again that his knack for understated melody is almost peerless. It’s music that can either drift by or wash over, submerging the listener in its somber tones, before throwing you against the rocks, heart heavily in hand. It’s an earnestness of sorts, that comes across as both desperate and knowing, and it’s backed up by the sweetest sounding brass section I’ve yet heard on a pop record. Album opener ‘The Candle’s Fire’ is typical Beirut: a giant pop song dressed-down as a weeping vaudevillian rhumba.
The feeling is an odd one: nauseating yet uplifting, feeling like Condon is moments away from despair, yet rescued by his music. This is indeed an album about its own muse. The self-reflection usually eschewed is focused on ‘The Rip Tide’, an indication of Condon’s maturation as a songwriter over the past three albums. On ‘The Peacock’, he croons ‘He’s the only one who knows the words’, a sure sign of his own insecurity – albeit veiled in the second person – yet the redemptive harmony of Condon and his accompaniment make it a self-effacement tinged with wonderment rather than woe.
His globetrotting too is reined in, further making the record a much more introspective affair. It’s only ‘East Harlem’ that gets an overt name-check, and its so routed in a sense of homeliness, with its dreamy jazz-tinged brass, that no matter how lofty Condon gets (‘Another rose wilts in East Harlem/And uptown downtown a thousand miles between us’), he’s always brought back down to the city-streets (‘Oh, the sound will bring me home again’).
As with Beirut’s previous recordings, the regimental drumming, tight as anything, underpins the album and prevents Condon’s songs from indulging in themselves too much, almost ensnaring him in his own Daedalian creations. Its an awkward juxtaposition – the hardy majesty beneath such restraint – but its one that gives the album its self-depreciating charm, world-weary nous, and unhinged brilliance.
In short, this is definitely Condon’s finest record to date. And whilst not as immediate as its predecessors, it’s an album of clandestine rewards, sought out through multiple listens, drawing you closer to a man you increasingly want to shrug off the moniker – that cantankerous second-person persona – and show you who really he is.
Beirut - The Rip Tide by musicismysunshine
Artists in this article: Beirut
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