Devotchka–A Mad and Faithful Telling
Devotchka might have made the best album of the year. For years they’ve been on my radar as a band that blended international influences from Mexico to Moscow, but I mistakenly wrote these guys off as merely filling the indie-world-music nitch alongside bands like Gogol Bordello and Beirut. Not that the bands in that nitch are bad, but in my opinion they don’t solidly transcend it the way Devotchka does with their latest.
You might have heard Devotchka’s music before. Their score for Little Miss Sunshine is apt to stick in your head, despite playing its assigned supporting role. If you’ve never heard the wonderful voice of Nick Urata belting above the multi-ethnic sounds of the band, however, you haven’t heard Devotchka. I don’t issue comparisons to Roy Orbison lightly–next to Otis Redding, he’s probably the best male vocalist in history–but Urata earns the comparison. There’s no question the voice is not quite as pure as that of the Big O, but Urata is in the ballpark nonetheless. Look: if you’ve got a group that’s instrumentally and compositionally competent to record scores, and you’ve got a vocalist like Urata, the only way you could go wrong is by having illiterate lyrics. No worries there. The songs are written carefully and intelligently, without having too heavy a hand and without irony.
I really cannot recommend this album enough. Go check out their gorgeous website and buy an album or two while you’re there. (Check out their song “Transliterator” when on their website. It’s the best song I’ve heard this year. But, since it probably doesn’t best represent their sound, I’m including a different track here.)