Caught in the Carousel

The Waking Eyes

Holding On To Whatever It Is
Coalition Entertainment

The Waking Eyes

Though some might know them best as the up-and-coming Winnipeg compatriots of The Weakerthans, The Waking Eyes are also big on looking back. On their fourth album, Rusty Matyas, Joey Penner, Matt Peters and Steve Senkiw mix retro synth and wistful lyrics into a neat cocktail of impetus and ennui, of hope and regret. Holding On To Whatever It Is is, both musically and lyrically, is an artful exercise in refurbishing the past.

In some ways, the album sounds like what might happen if one threw classic rock anthems by Journey, Supertramp and Genesis into a blender with contemporary guitar-based indie rock acts like Franz Ferdinand and Spoon. Starting out slowly, building to an insistent thrum and evolving into danceable thrash, the opening (and title) track evokes Franz Ferdinand's "Jacqueline." The next track, "Get Me To The Doctor" starts out with Britt Daniel-style crooning and ultimately peaks with a guitar solo worthy of Neal Schon. Given its sampling of other genres, it's not surprising that Holding On To Whatever It Is contains bits of hip-hop as well: "Clap Clap" contains a few notes that could be straight out of Outkast's "Hey Ya!"

But The Waking Eyes also subtly brand the album with their own quiet flourishes. "Get Me To The Doctor" fades out with a rattling mandolin; the crooning "Trouble On The Patio" has electronica blips in the background. By itself, this painstaking artistry would simply suggest the self-consciousness of an indie kid-turned-rocker who grew up listening to his dad's classic rock records: that is to say, endearing, but also mildly annoying. The Waking Eyes, however, seamlessly integrate old influences and new elements, proving themselves musically without showing off.

Being overtly flashy wouldn't suit them, anyhow. The Waking Eyes are plenty loud, but they sell neither the sex-and-bubblegum rhymes of Top 40, nor the poorly constructed sarcastic references that pass for irony with so many indie acts. At certain moments, their lyrics are pure poetry: not because of sentiment (though there is that), but because of craft. "Trouble On The Patio," for example, muddles gender while leading the listener line by line: "I'm a boy/are you a girl/who's only counting/the seconds..." The song hints at the futility of transposing new relationships onto old tropes, concluding that, "our arrangement is doomed."

Successful songwriting requires a fraught interaction between music and lyrics. What's particularly unique about The Waking Eyes is the way in which the lyrics, in and of themselves, already contain a necessary amount of tension. Few other bands can write lines that stand as well on paper as they sound against guitar. The Waking Eyes, on the other hand, come up with the almost Edgar Allen Poe-like lines "my final hour/crept like a mouse to my door," ("Get Me To The Doctor"), and successfully integrate arcane phrases like "digital glue" ("Digital Glue") and "oh my penniless heart" ("Trouble On The Patio").

That's not to say that every single moment of the album is perfect. A few of the lyrics could be filler, and some songs ("Empires Fall," "Wolves At The Door") have more sticking power than others (the vaguely screamo "Keeps Me Coming Back" doesn't necessarily keep the listener coming back). But by and large, Holding On To Whatever It Is is fun, sad, evocative and unique.

—Christine Fort