"In 1984, I was hospitalized for approaching perfection." As first lines of an album go, this one, the opening shot fired on Silver Jews' 1998 album American Water, is among the greats, up there with Raw Power's "I'm a street-walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm" and Straight Outta Compton's "You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge." It's an especially great line coming from Silver Jews' David Berman because "perfection" as a concept has little place in his universe. In this landscape, flubbed notes exist alongside amazing guitar solos (when Berman's buddy Stephen Malkmus is around, anyway), shirts are untucked, keys are more suggestions than rules, some of the best lyrics in rock history are interspersed with unapologetic groaners (I could kiss the guy who wrote, "Come to Tennessee/ 'Cause you're the only ten I see") and characters are often flawed to the point of paralysis.
Perfection being what it is for Silver Jews, and Berman being so comfortable with that notion, it's easy for fans to gloss over the rough patches. I have a feeling I'm not alone when I say that on every SJ record-- save American Water, almost-- I still skip around a bit. The nature of Silver Jews allows for inconsistent albums, even though the records appear infrequently. Two or three or four duff tracks on one record is nothing to get worked up about, and they may even add to the ramshackle charm. And so while Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, the first Silver Jews album in almost three years, has the usual small handful of eh-to-just-OK tracks, it also feels different from prior Silver Jews albums in a way that's hard to put a finger on.
Part of it could be the lack of knockout songs. There are no instant entries to the SJ canon, nothing here that knocks you on your ass, not a single "How did he write that?" moment. And this problem is there from the beginning, the opening, where SJ have always killed: Where Tanglewood Numbers grabbed us by the throat with "Punks in the Beerlight" and The Natural Bridge turned a chair around and sat us down to explain "How to Rent a Room", Lookout Mountain opens with the plodding and dull "What Is Not But Could Be If". You feel like you just tripped and fell awkwardly into the album.
It doesn't help that the production is oddly harsh and distant-sounding; where Berman sounds best clear and uncluttered, so that it seems like he's engaging you in conversation, on this record his voice has a weirdly persistent metallic reverb clinging to it, like he's broadcasting from inside a tin can and you're straining to connect with him. Something about the sound makes him sound a bit uneasy, stiff, and a touch less confident. Busy Nashville producer Mark Nevers handled a chunk of the recording and all the mixing, and the warmth he's been known to give albums by Lambchop, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, and the Clientele is missing here. Berman's bassist and vocalist wife Cassie is, as she was on Tanglewood Numbers, far too high in the mix. There were some weird choices made in the studio.