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Indie rock's grizzled Grizzly Adams, Damien Jurado has long guzzled in the deepest reaches of the trough of musical depression, penning mopey odes whose soporific plod kept a beat that matched the mournful hearts of sad-'n'-lonely boys everywhere. Often lost amidst these throes of woe and the difficult emotional going of such was the fact that Jurado could pen himself a natty old tune, and that underneath all that sadness there was a rocker crying to get out. Freshly medicated, Jurado is now content to wear such strains of constituent musical make-up on his fuzzy flannel-shirt sleeve. I Break Chairs ditches the pretty lonesome-balladeer arrangements of past Sub Pop longplayers to dial in the full-time help of a rock-'n'-roll trio: guitar, bass, drums. The result comes across as some kind of un-ironic plod-rock emoting, with comparisons to, like, Son Volt and Dinosaur Jr not entirely out of place. But, despite some slight twangs in his vocal cords, its important to note that the record is free from faux-country affectation — and, even better, free from alt-cuntry affectation. Its affections lie much more with wholesome notions of four-guys-playing-in-a-garage and other such idyllic rockist beliefs, and across the whole you can almost sense Jurado smiling as two guitars dance on in something closely resembling a solo — a far cry from the far cries he once wept.
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