[rating=3.00]
While working on the soundtrack to the movie One Fast Move or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur; Son Volt’s Jay Farrar and Death Cab for Cutie’s Benjamin Gibbard decided to develop their collaboration to include more original songs (and some selected concerts) based on the Beat avatar’s writings. The CD resulting from their mutual interest, unfortunately, is a mixed bag.
There’s no arguing the power of the acoustic guitars sweeping across the stereo spectrum on "California Zephyr," but neither those instruments, the rest of the arrangement or Gibbard’s somewhat frail vocals captures the thrill of anticipation or the weariness of the road. Farrar’s performance on "Low Life Kingdom" is a dour piece that would sound at home on any Son volt album, where the pedal steel supplies the necessary glimmer of hope. The founder of Uncle Tupelo formulated this material using words of Kerouac’s he married to his own melodies and so evinces a connection to the material his collaborator does not.
Even with its pronounced bass and drums, "All in One" is bereft of comfort as, again, Gibbard’s singing isn’t strong enough: his voice doesn’t contain nuances like a delight in nature to which the lyrics allude. In further contrast, Farrar’s vocal ebbs and flows around the guitars and organ in "Breathe Our Iodine." "Something good will come of all things yet" sings Gibbard early in "These Roads Don’t Move," but he doesn’t sound convinced or convincing, despite the easy free-wheeling motion of the band. In "Big Sur" the delicacy of Farrar’s singing finds its corollary in echoed guitar and tender piano that carries an undertone of awe; such subtleties elude Gibbard, and in turn, the band behind him, when he is up front as on the title song. As on this cut and most of One Fast Move, The ensemble sounds simultaneously too careful and forced.
