Piano Magic - Writers Without Homes (2002)

A less than engrossing record from Piano Magic was bound to happen at some
point, but few could have predicted something as dull, drab, and ultimately
powerless as Songs From the Chronic Fatigue Ward -- er, Writers Without
Homes. This album features hardly any of the exquisitely formed and solemn
pop found throughout the group's rich discography, only showing for the
heartbreaking "The Season Is Long," a mournful -- but beautiful and limpid
-- ballad played with a fittingly spare arrangement and hauntingly resigned
guest turns from Simon Raymonde on piano and the Czars' John Grant on
vocals. Most of what precedes and follows is lifeless, meandering
wallowing. Even "The Season Is Long" itself is punctuated/punctured with an
extended segment of rainfall and distant thunder. (OK, we get it -- the
season is long.) There's a fine line between fragile and frail, and this
album is much more the latter than the former. Tragic words that are spoken
-- like the ones that relate an experience of watching an old film and
delivering a personal epitaph upon the realization that the furry critters
in it must be dead by now -- might not look bad on screen or page, but when
they are stated plainly with an accompaniment of impossibly precious,
twinkling melodies, they're hard to take seriously or stomach. The best
example of Writers Without Homes' attack on the nerves is actually right at
the beginning. "(Music Won't Save You From Anything But) Silence" is Piano
Magic's own "Rat Salad" or "Toad," a furious instrumental with the drums
taking center stage. But instead of bridging two songs with a brief burst
or closing out the album, it blasts for nearly seven minutes and sets up a
whole lot of not very much. Listen to this album and feel drained of all
energy without actually spending it.