Release date: October 4th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Jangle pop, indie pop, synthpop, post-punk, dream pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
One of my favorite albums of last year was Bury the Dead by Spirit Night, the long-awaited fourth album from the band of former The World Is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die guitarist Dylan Balliett. Bury the Dead is a career-landmark album–the New York-based Balliett returned to his hometown in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle to record it with Rozwell Kid’s Jordan Hudkins and Good Sport’s Ryan Hizer, and it felt like the culmination of the emo-shaded indie rock that was formative in both his youth and in his own music up until that point. After nailing that sound so strongly, why not try something different? Enter Time Won’t Tell, the fifth Spirit Night LP and the second in as many years. For one, it’s a quick turnaround after Bury the Dead’s long gestation time, and for another, it embraces a less-seen side of Balliett’s songwriting, exploring jangly Flying Nun-esque guitar pop, synthpop, and even a bit of post-punk and new wave. Time Won’t Tell is neither a logical extension from previous Spirit Night records nor is it a clean break from the past–Hudkins is still on the drums, and Hizer shows up on occasion too, but newcomer Miguel Gallego (Miserable chillers) makes his mark with his bass rhythms and synth additions, and while Balliett’s writing contains plenty of the years-past spelunking found in Bury the Dead, it’s more built from memories passively floating in and out than the former record’s vivid desperation.
I’m not sure if I’d call Time Won’t Tell a pure “bedroom pop” album, but it sits well alongside the classics of the genre. Spirit Night really let the synths shade the bulk of the record, forming a core tenet of songs like “Out of Hand” and “26” and even making an impact on some of the more “guitar-forward” tracks, while Hudkins (whose main band has spent their career making the equivalent of jock rock for some of the least jock-like people on Earth) proves more than up to the task of handling more delicate material with his percussion. The Dunedin-based tones of lead single “Darker Now” lose no power in the context of the album, and if that song’s melancholic take on power pop isn’t “Spirit Night” enough, “Another War”, the loudest song on the album, is an exasperated power-pop-punk sprint through a messy relationship. Balliett takes Spirit Night even further down the rabbit hole in some of the album’s other highlights–“A.M.” is impossibly tender except for when it isn’t, a classic Spirit Night song swallowed up by echoes and mirrors. “We talk plans / Even though none of us has one,” yells Balliett from somewhere deep within the song; on Bury the Dead, that’d be the focal point of the track, but here, the contemplation is secondary to the plea to which the track eventually builds–it’s like bells going off, equal parts celebratory and alarming.
There’s a two-minute synth instrumental at the middle of Time Won’t Tell called “Bertie” (named, of course, after one of Balliett’s dogs) that’s the most obvious indication that we’ve somehow landed in a millennial emo version of a Cleaners from Venus album, although there are less subtle hints, like the ninety-second heartfelt acoustic-based bedroom pop ballad “Wendy” (named, of course, after another one of Balliett’s dogs) and penultimate track “Memory Park” (which begins much the same way as “Wendy” before the synths truly run amok as the song draws to a close). The one song on Time Won’t Tell that reaches back towards Bury the Dead thematically is, enjoyably, the biggest musical departure. Second-half highlight “26” is a fully-developed synthpop exploration about being the titular age, Hizer’s bass and full-on 80s synth halos digging in alongside Balliett’s meditative lyrics. “You’ll never be this young again, and you’ve never been so old,” he sings in the chorus, hovering right beside his younger self on the train to work. And this moment is where the dividing line between the in-the-moment Bury the Dead and Time Won’t Tell takes shape to me: all the musical time machines and “nostalgic” keyboard presets in the world can’t make “26” sound like it was sung by the person depicted in the track itself. He’s still in there, of course, but he’s sharing space with the “elder emo” (who’d give you a death glare if you called him that, I’m sure) who’s no longer clinging to youth, intentionally or otherwise.
The truce is negotiated in the campfire-acoustic closing track, “Somebody’s Going to Love You for Who You Already Are”. “So if you’re still waiting for the right moment to strike / I think you might be better off to live your life just how you like,” Balliett sings, breezily but craftily threading the needle between static and change on a personal level. The song is about letting go of the urge to constantly tweak and shape one’s self chasing validation for others–but, of course, becoming someone who can brush these urges off (or, at least, become more discerning in what to tune out) is personal development in itself. “That’s not to say it was in vain to set a higher bar / Just that they’re going to love you for who you already are,” Balliett sings to sum things up. It reminds me of a line from my favorite band, Silkworm, from “The Operative” off of It’ll Be Cool: “Don’t ever change / Unless you change for the better”. I’ve always thought it was a beautiful and pure sentiment in the context of a love song–whittled down so sharply that it could be mistaken for something pettier in a different setting, but clear enough to me here. That’s what “Somebody’s Going to Love You for Who You Already Are”–and, I suppose Time Won’t Tell as a whole–crystallizes to me. (Bandcamp link)
Rosy Overdrive 