Rainer Maria
Long Knives Drawn (CD)
 It took about three or so listens for the Shmat to get used to the latest release from Rainer Maria, Long Knives Drawn. He hadn't heard any of their stuff before so he went into this particular musical taste-testing completely blind. The part of the music that he had to adjust to in this case was the extremely high octane vocals of Caithlin de Marrais. Because he'd lately been listening to a lot of caffeinated, folky CDs like Iron and Wine and Jeff Hanson, Shmat had to realign his melody mindset to this emphatic and sometimes even bratty way of singing.
Shmat wasn't so sure he liked the way Caithlin nearly approached the stratospheric ferocity of Corin of Sleater-Kinney, and at first he thought it sounded a little forced or out of place in the surrounding music. However, after a couple spins he began to see that her voice is actually the reason that there is good dynamic balance in the songs. Like Carol van Dyk of Bettie Serveert, she uses her vocal fuel injection to avoid being buried in the mix when the rest of the band rocks out (which is most of the time).
Twisty, interesting lyrics also scored extra brownie points with the Shmat. In particular, he was amazed at the way the phrase "And all that we were thinking / Is about individuality" from "The Awful Truth About Loving" could be sung without sounding strained or unwieldy. In fact, it serves as the high point in the song. Add in the strident, smart guitar playing of Kyle Fischer and the tasteful snap of William Kuehn on drums, and suddenly Shmat became the latest Rainer Maria fan on the block.
An interesting side note, when Caithlin sneers "You look SO wicked" on the opening track "Mystery and Misery" she totally reminded the Shmat of Jina Yi of Racecar. Very strange, because he hasn't listened to anything from Racecar for nearly 4 years.
While Rainer Maria tend to bring the house down on nearly every song (and Shmat thinks their power pop growling would make for a great live show), this isn't to say that they don't make any room for quiet moments. Well, ok, they only make that room on one song. The reserved nature of the ending track "Situation : Relation" was a good way to close the album and the Shmat couldn't help but crave a few more of these softer numbers to provide some contrast. From reading what a few others had to say about this latest album, apparently Rainer Maria had higher percentage of toned down songs in the past. Maybe their next album will be a fortuitous mixture of both the inflammable and mellow sides of the band.
- review by SHMAT (5.17.03)
Polyvinyl Record Co.
PO Box 1885
Danville, IL 61834-1885
info@polyvinylrecords.com
www.rainermaria.com
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