[rating=6.00]
Tim Kasher has long been a bastion of the emo-folk scene out of Omaha spearheaded by Conor Oberst. In his primary project, Cursive, Kasher has maintained a delicate balance between his crew’s more folk tendencies and the band’s stated post-hardcore purpose. Some records have skewed more in one direction than the other, but for the most part Cursive has avoided slipping away from their rock roots. On Kasher’s latest solo effort, No Resolution, that balance is abandoned in favor of maddeningly lethargic depression.
Kasher’s melodies are on point and he still excels as a lyricist, particularly on “Runts” with lines like “fuck my life, she said/popping half a xanax with a little wine/she can settle down/settle down/and if he can’t/she can’t think about that now.” Yet musically the record refuses to lift out of its own self-imposed state of sorrow. Through string arrangements and laconic percussion, Kasher seems to be daring his listeners to dive into his neuroses with him.
That’s all fine and good, but it amounts to many build-ups with, ironically, no resolutions. Kasher will only tease at the slightest release, such as in “Hollow” where a psych rock climax finally seems to allow the listener a respite, but ends far too quickly to settle back into the album’s frustratingly consistent mood.
The arrangements themselves are beautiful, no doubt, but No Resolution is quite revealing of the necessity of Cursive’s more balanced approach. One longs for Kasher to allow for a real rocking and screaming session to vent all the pent up anger quietly boiling beneath the surface of each track. Removed from his main band’s outside input, Kasher focuses all his attention on the slow burn and none on the inevitable conclusion of all that fire. No Resolution is a worthy entry into his body of work, but ultimately could have benefitted from Kasher taking more risks and getting a bit more aggressive.
