Set List: Singing In My Sleep / Never you mind / In Another
Life / If I Run / Made To Last / Secret Smile / Delicious /
Closing Time
LITERATE, EROTIC powerpop: sadly, there's not much call for that these days.
The lyrics make it too articulate for mass consumption; the tunefulness makes
it too easy for the serious punter. Highest-profiled practitioner, perhaps,
was Prince circa Little Red Corvette, but we all know where his tongue was
lodged (his cheek, his cheek), and that the appeal was dangerously kitsch.
Semisonic are not kitsch, though they too hail from the Fargo-esque badlands of Minneapolis. Evolving from psychedelic combo Trip Shakespeare, Semisonic's debut album, Great Divide, showed a band floundering between straight-ahead AOR and something more complex. Their second adventure, Feeling Strangely Fine, was one of the largely undiscovered gems of last year. The melodies are delicately hooky, veering between sweet, melancholy laments and a visceral, driving groove; lyrics are seductive, wise but romantic, in a way that maybe we Brits, bogged down in Loaded culture, can no longer easily grasp. A frayed, grungy edge, imparted by Australian producer Nick Launay, kicks it all into place and has had the band described as part-Nirvana, part-Crowded House.
The three-piece take the stage of the Beacon, whose ragged opulence suits their style, in intriguing tonic outfits, a more than motley crew. Lyricist, singer and lead guitar Dan Wilson is nerdy in Joe 90 specs; but, as he launches into Singing In My Sleep - tale of a man wooed by his ex-girlfriend's compilation tape - you can see the draw. Wilson's voice is a soulful alto, just this side of Daryl hall, and it gives his words the clarity they deserve. Secret weapon, however, is bassist John Munson. Munson looks like Magpie's Mick Robertson, he thinks he's a rock god, but his vocal chime so well with Wilson's that we get echoing Beach Boy harmonies and the ghostly reverb of a haunted lover's nostalgia ("I've been living in your cassette/It's the modern equivalent/Of singing up to a Capulet/On a balcony in your mind...").
Straddling the monitors like Cro-Magnon man, Munson sings lead, but his suddenly pyrotechnic vocals muddy the mood. On If I Run he's loose again, handing in a long bass break of Godzilla-like weight. New York is roaring with joy, Wilson says happily, "Now we're getting somewhere," and, like a killjoy, I think, Are we? I'd been hoping for more of the irony, much less of the bludgeoning freak-out. Things continue in this way - even the mellifluous Secret Smile is really just a guffaw - until the hit, Closing Time. It's nothing if not anthemic.
Cornering the bespectacled Wilson backstage, one is forced to ask for explanations. "Often, what I write demands simplicity, it's like a haiku, there's no room to cut loose. But other songs need a pressure valve." That's therapeutic? "Sure, in ways not everyone would know. Take Closing Time. Of course, it's about nightclubs, wanting to have sex with somebody. But when I wrote it, my wife and I had just had a baby, Coco, born prematurely. She was in the hospital for a long time. And that line in the song, 'I know who I want to take me home' - that's for her."
Their hearts are in the right place. If Semisonic are coming out of a psychedelia that really doesn't suit them, rather than going into it, everything could still turn out strangely fine...
Glyn Brown