Marty Willson-Piper - Nightjar (2009)

In 2009, on the threshold of making another album with his former band, the Church, Marty Willson-Piper created a slightly flawed jangle pop masterpiece, one that finds him consolidating his position as both the most melodically sophisticated and, too frequently, the most pretentious of the band's songwriting members. His strengths and weaknesses are nicely summed up on Nightjar's third track: "More Is Less" is built on a beautiful fingerpicked acoustic guitar part and a delicately lovely sung melody that alternates subtly between diatonic and modal settings to dreamily lovely effect. At the same time, its lyrics are self-righteous and the arrangement is too precious by half. But as he's gotten older he's become more willing to temper his tendency toward self-indulgence in the interest of popcraft, resulting in such utter gems of hookwise jangle pop as "Lullabye for the Lonely"; a slow, rich, and gorgeous rocker called "The Sniper"; and the brilliantly shimmering and swooningly tuneful "High Down Below." The album's end is inexplicable: after the conceptually bloated twaddle of "Song for Victor Jara" (minimalist arrangement, cookie-cutter politics, Dylanesque vocalisms, bamboo whistle), the program ends with a dragging, weepy waltz. You learn to take the worst with the best when it comes to Marty Willson-Piper's solo work, and it's just lucky that his best is so very, very good.