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On their fourth LP, this decade-old, left-of-center Portland, OR trio sounds less deliberately daft than on past releases. True, screwball guitarist/singer Shane de Leon – who previously played trumpet for avant-gardists Rollerball – still has that nervy, hazy, and pleasantly off-pitch David Byrne-meets-Jonathan Richman croon, like he’s under a mild marijuana-induced miasma (that’s more than an educated guess: two of So Sweet’s songs mention weed-wafting!). But bassist Jeanne Kennedy Crosby’s and drummer Andy Brown’s off-kilter, constantly shifting rhythms are more moderate and mid-tempo, and the mood is mellower than on 2012’s Like a Book. Further, that album’s incursions into trepidatious art-rock terrain are tempered, and Jacopo Andreini’s cacophonous horns are AWOL.
Perhaps de Leon’s previously playful outlook has been dampened by despondent, relationship-on-the-rocks lyrics. For example, on the laid-back, ‘70s-inspired folk-meets-stoner rock of “Leeway,” he’s hoping an aimless beach excursion will help him forget looming familial anxieties. Meanwhile, the alternately plodding and pliable, psych-tinged “Hard to Know” is a troubled tale of an unruly romance doomed by drunk and disorderly diversions. A leisurely cover of Mark Dinning’s 1961 B-side “Turn Me On” (also recorded by Nina Simone in 1967 and Norah Jones in 2003) expands upon the LP’s lyrical theme, depicting a restless soul waiting for his departed lover to return home. Old fans shouldn’t despair, though. As the ‘60s girl group/doo wop of “Tangled Up,” the late night blues of “Lovely Hearts,” and the jazz-lounge vibe of “End of the Record” prove (as does the album cover’s drool-inducing donut drawing), So Sweet still exhibits enough eccentricities to entice MMS enthusiasts. (northpolerecords.com, wallacerecords.com)
