It’s hard to tell whether The Traditionist would be better served to not try so hard to craft a different sound, or simply try a little harder to sound enthused about what they’re giving their fans.

It’s been something of a hallmark of certain indie acts to try to achieve a less-is-more persona by singing everything in deadpan. It comes back, one guesses, to the old adage that you should whisper if you really want to get someone’s attention. Works sometimes, but when it doesn’t, it just makes people sound bored.

Well, as the fine folks of Harvey Danger once declared, if you’re bored, then you’re boring.

Season to Season needs to be singer Joey Barro’s cue to head back to the drawing board. But first, he needs to take a cue from some people who know how to suck listeners into the music. He has a Modest Mouse-type thing going, wherein he throws a lot of sounds at the wall to see what sticks and in the right places, it’s jaunty and interesting. But in other places, what he’s throwing slides down the wall and comes together in a puddle on the floor.

Take “A Sleep Be Told”. It’s light and airy, like something that would be right at home on a Shrek soundtrack. To his credit, Joey Barro pulls off a nice Mark Oliver Everett impression with his high, sleepy-sounding deadpan. But it works against him: it didn’t get my attention, it made me really not care what he was singing about. That’s something Matthew Good does very, very well, so maybe someone would be well-served to buy Barro a copy of Avalanche or Beautiful Midnight. Then from out of nowhere, comes a noisy Sonic Youth-style guitar solo that just sounds out of place.

The song has a nice feel overall but just sounds like a bad combination of signature styles of Modest Mouse, the Eels and any band that employs a guitar solo consisting of random distorted Stupid Amplifier Tricks.

The next two songs, “Only A Nightmare” and “Driftwood Doll”, make some progress in that it’s at least easier to understand Barro’s inflection. And he gets his feelings across about a failed relationship – both in terms of unrequited longing for the relationship that was and just wanting some clarity, respectively – as effectively as anyone could ask. Trouble is, he still just seems like he’s going through the motions. Maybe he means to seem sad, but he just seems numb. The organ, guitar and drums blend much more nicely than anything on “A Sleep Be Told”, so at least that starts to come together.

Ah, but the ADD sets in again on “Makebelieve Tree”. Barro goes from a nice Wilco-style sound, circa Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, to a synth and drum-machine track that just feels out-of-place after the aesthetic of the previous two tracks. And again, with the random noises. His versatility would be encouraging in a more organized setting, but it just comes off as TOO “experimental” and almost schizophrenic.

There are some good things happening here. Barro has some interesting ideas, no question. But instead of cramming as much versatility as possible into one album, he would’ve been better served to go the Beck route, and stick to one-style, one-album. That way, he would better show that he can consistently master his many sounds, rather than crafting an album that just seems indecisive and, at times, bored.

Review by: Sean Comer

Additional link:
- The Traditionist on Myspace