Denison Witmer 'Carry The Weight'

Denison Witmer has spent over ten years making consistently good indie-folk albums and in that time he has made two really excellent records.

'Philadelphia Songs', one of his early albums, is a collection of songs about home, growing up and moving on that anyone would find touching. Mainly consisting of vocal, acoustic guitar and piano, it breaks no boundaries but does what it sets out to do, very well. 2005's 'Are You A Dreamer' was better still. With songs this time about dreaming, sleep and loneliness and contributions from Sufjan Stevens, Rosie Thomas and Innocence Mission's Don Peris, this was a lovely record. In particular, 'Castles and Cathedrals', a sparse, whispered snapshot of a postcard from England was, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful songs written in the last five years. Surely with his next album, Witmer would get the recognition he deserves to stand him alongside better known peers such as Stevens, Will Oldham and the like...

Well, this album may do better commercially that it's predecessors but that won't change the disappointing fact that Witmer has made a staggeringly dull record. From the start it is clear that he has tried to move on from the slow, quiet sound of his previous records and has introduced a fuller band sound. Drums and keyboards are much more to the forefront than on earlier recordings. Opener 'Beautiful Boys and Girls' is jaunty but says almost nothing beyond repeating the title line over and over again. 'Life Without Aesthetics' is similar but better, featuring a nice lyric about bygone days and pretty harmonies at the end.

From here the album follows, almost completely, the formula of ballad followed by upbeat song. He appears to have nothing to say though. 'Carry The Weight' is trite in the extreme, to the point where you can guess the next lines before he sings them, 'From Here On Out' is an attempt at his old sound but is deathly dull and the hookline 'from here on out/ it looks like you and me' sounds more like a threat than a promise. Other songs are forgettable and 'If You Are The Writer' with it's electric guitar flurishes is dragged down by a lazy lyric. Other lyrics seem to try too hard to be interesting, what does 'patches on the elbows of my eyes' mean?

Only with the bittersweet finale 'Chesapeake Watershed' does he get anywhere near the quality of songwriting of some of his previous efforts. This is a real disappointment. Witmer sounds bored himself, so how on earth can he expect the listener to feel any differently?

4.5

['Carry The Weight' is out now on import and on vinyl from Burnt Toast records]