When Devendra Banhart's Rejoicing in the Hands was released in May, it
received almost universal acclaim. The wonderfully eccentric songsmith was crowned
poster boy (and pin-up boy) of the folk-revival revival, a nebulous "movement" that
found numerous outsider-folk types crossing over to popularity in the early ought-four,
Banhart the most popular amongst a friendly set — including Joanna Newsom,
Currituck Co., CocoRosie, Vetiver, and even Sufjan Stevens — who all issued
albums around the same time. Four months on, and the times they are a-changin',
so much so that already those with a keen sense of pop-cultural smell can sense
the backlash coming, this being about as long as you can expect a movement to
reign in this message-board era. Banhart's aware of it, too, already calling
out this music — the music he plays, the music we love — as having
become trendy, spitting that word at me (in a bar bathroom in Sacramento) like
leading this revival might be starting to drag, the great weight weighing down
on a bearded boy whose frame is mighty slight. If the quickly-spent currency
of cool had anything to do with quality, and the folk-revival revival needed
a killer new disc from Devendra to keep it on top, I don't think Niño
Rojo delivers; it's easily the least convincing album from the three Banhart's
offered thus far. It's not like the second record culled from those Rejoicing… sessions
is lacking in magical moments, though. There's "We All Know," where Banhart's
da-dum-da-da-dums lead a exultant procession; "Be Kind," which is belted out
with a rockband lust unheard in the Banhart pantheon; and, notably, the genial "At
the Hop," with its genius refrains of "Put me in your dry-dream/ Put me in your
wet/ If you haven't yet" and "Put me in your tongue-tie/ Make it hard to say/
That you ain't gonna stay." Where it comes up short is in the quality control
across its 16 songs. Given that the 23-year-old troubadour has released 64 (or
so) songs unto the world in the space of 18 months, it's not surprising that
Banhart's particular peculiarities — that tremorous voice, that tenuous
fidelity, his heightened spirit — are no longer papering over the "misses" on
this disc.
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