Warm and Fuzzy Furcoat

January 4, 2006

Rabbit Fur Coat
Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins

Available January 24th, 2006

In the midst of all the perky, cute pop of “More Adventurous,” Rilo Kiley snuck in a Dusty Springfield style showstopper called “I Never” which showcased lead singer Jenny Lewis’s pipes and her flair for the melodramatic. With her new solo record, Rabbit Furcoat, Lewis fully succumbs to her inner Patsy Cline. A typical Rilo Kiley song will wrap Jenny Lewis’s wry wit and natural melancholy in a layer of infectious melodies. Without Kiley cohort Blake Sennett, Jenny Lewis lets Furcoat unravel and lay bare in its stripped arrangements, languorous in its loneliness. The resulting songs of love, doubt and God are a blend of blue-eyed soul, country, folk and gospel, but all of them beguile with cozy intimacy.

Lewis is aided and abetted by the supernatural harmonies of the Watson Twins, whose detached vocals hang and flutter in the air to great effect. Their best work lies in “Rise Up With Fists,” where their lines haunt Lewis’s every thought. Lewis may sing to her adulterer buddy “It was not pretty, but she was…” but it’s the Watson Twins that finish the thought with “… not your wife.” The Twins also augment the hymnal “Run Devil Run” and the choral sections of “Born Secular” with appropriately angelic contributions.

Conor Oberst and Ben Gibbard also swing by for a Traveling Wilburys cover (”Handle Me With Care”), but the album stands strongest when Lewis truly goes solo and leans on her dulcet vocals. “Happy” is heart-wrenchingly sad, with Lewis singing the word repeatedly with seemingly no idea of what it means. Every other reading of happy seems to end with a question mark and an inquisitive crick of the neck. “Melt Your Heart” is, shockingly, heart melting with it’s “Wild Horses” guitar chords and a particularly alluring vocal performance. The title track is a storytime fable of materialism and values that ties together the record. It asks, in its own endearing roundabout way, “What the hell do we want out of life, really?”

Jenny Lewis never quite revs up the motor, but the pace does quicken on a few tracks. “Big Guns” is a bluegrass inflected romp and “The Charging Sky” is a quick witted reflection on the gambling life. The huckster quicktalk of “You Are What You Love” plays out a tale of unrequited love with repeated allusions to magic, slowing down just enough for my favorite line on the record: “I’m in love with illusion, so saw me in half / I’m in love with tricks so pull another rabbit out your hat.” The wordplay is just shy of Elvis Costello, clever and fun but keeping its emotional center at all times.

I don’t know enough about Jenny Lewis’s life to say Rabbit Furcoat is autobiographical, but it sure does feel authentic, a tougher feat by far. It captures a lifetime’s worth of angst and solipsism but delivers it with a the weary resiliency of someone that’s already past it, a series of letters from big sister Jenny. Early in the year, sure, but it’s my favorite record of 2006.

Download:
Rise Up With Fists (MP3)
Melt Your Heart (MP3)

Posted in From Blown Speakers