Parallel Tracks

Baltimore based Celebration's self-titled debut builds on a set of relationships more than a decade old. Hardly an actual first record, the three members have been playing together in various configurations for years. Vocalist Katrina Ford and multi-instrumentalist Sean Antanaitis are married and have been making music together for 13 years; first in the frenzied, blood-drenched Jaks, the brooding, shambling Love Life and then Birdland, basically Celebration in duo form with sequenced, electronic drums. Dave Bergander provided the duo with first rate percussion in their Love Life days and returns in this most recent permutation. The record was produced by Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio fame, with whom Ford made vocal turns on their debut EP and who also produced both Love Life records. Still, for a team that should benefit from such familiarity, their reach in this instance seems to exceed their grasp.

Live, the band benefits from the visual dichotomy surrounding Ford and Antanaitis. He is seated, stoically performing all of the melody parts, piano, organ, guitar and bass while Ford lurches, shakes, wails, purrs and coos lyrics of love, anger, indignation and escape. They balance Ford's chaos fostering high priestess persona and her husband's studied, highly technical working of the musical special effects that allow her to woo audiences into her church with Bergander’s pace-directing percussion.

Songs on the record alternate between slow burn and fever pitch. The opening “War,” a stampeding battle hymn that rails against present world troubles, careers always forward, whirling as it goes, gaining momentum until it crashes into the wall and Ford’s “Got more guns than anybody” refrain. “Diamonds” slows down to funeral march pace and adds TVOTR buddy Tunde Adebimpe to backing vocals. “Holiday” incorporates Sitek’s atmospheric, effects-laden guitar but neither song is really paid back by their involvement, with both additions to the mix detracting from the balance the band walks so tenuously in their live show.

Sitek’s production can never quite convey to the listener what the band is capable of live. The guitar on “Foxes” is less audible than one would expect but on “New Skin” they come through brilliantly. Songs that sounded nearly perfect on the demos that Sitek committed to tape for Ford and Antanaitis’ Birdland are muddier, more sedate and less immediate on the Celebration full-length, interesting considering that band’s lack of a drummer.

Ford’s vocals have been interesting, to say the least, since her Jaks days and this record sees her reaching higher octaves. On previous records it would be easy to mistake Ford’s voice for a man’s, something that she never claimed as an insult in the past. This time around, she embraces the upper register of her voice, opting more often for squeals and coos as counterpoint to couplets and quatrains than for howls and growls, though they’re still abundantly present as well. The vocal acrobatics do everything for mood but do little but hinder attempts at full comprehension. But in the end, this record isn’t expressing meaning with words as much as it is pelting the listener with stormy atmosphere.

“Good Ship” rolls eerily out of Antanaitis’ pump organ and pitches and rolls with Ford’s lament joined by various members of TVOTR belowdecks. This is the one song in which the band really reaches beyond their excellent live show and succeeds in the studio. The additional vocals are powerful but the production keeps them germane to the overall topic of the song. This song SHOULD cap off the record but it doesn’t.

“Stars” a slower, claustrophobic version of Birdland’s “Stars Don’t Shine In Banks” (one of my favorite songs from those tracks) is tacked on at the end and served with an additional and almost extraneous percussion coda. The song itself isn’t bad despite its changes from the duo version, but its placement among the other songs feels off, anticlimactic.

The Celebration record does its best to convince you to go see the band live. And really, that’s all it should do. It’s not a perfect image of the band’s inexplicable, teetering yet balanced visceral and technical performance but it comes as close as I think anything less than a fully rendered, live DVD of the band on stage can get to actually being in the room with Ford demanding that her audience be captivated in the grip of the ceremony she is presiding over.

And now background:

I have been acquainted with the people in this band for years. We have been friends and we have been less than friends. In the past I have been quick to give glowing praise to their work. Now, with us speaking irregularly if at all, I question my ability to accurately review their work. Was I too ready to lavish praise upon people who I admired and felt close to? Or am I more likely to be overly critical when I have less convivial feelings about my relationship to them and their body of work?

This is important to me. My ability to know what is good regardless of my personal interest in a piece of work is important. I rail against my father's sentimental predilection for latter-day music made by artists that are long since past their "genius-will-make-you-immortal" expiration date. (It really is better to burn out than to fade away.) And I rail against people who happily tell me that they like what they like and that their opinion regarding the fact that their like is good is as valid as anyone else's likes.

The fact is that your notion of what is good shouldn't have anything to do with what you like. However, what you like should at least be informed by what you try to know is good. The only way to do this is to develop a sense of empathy, an ability to exit your own perspective long enough to think about how others might or ought to see art/music, etc. when judged in the same disinterested way you ought to be doing so. Like or dislike should always come after judgment.

Similarly, who you are friends with shouldn't have any effect on whether you like what they do. A friendship between creative people shouldn't be predicated on appreciation of each other's work.

Shouldn't, but let's be honest with ourselves.

My reaction to the tracks on Sean and Katrina's Birdland record was significantly different than it has been to the Celebration record. What's the difference? There are aspects of the new record that are vastly superior to the demos, but in questioning whether I am being more objective now than I was two years ago, I can't easily make a definite determination as to the quality of my own criticism. At the same time, I feel like I did a good job pointing out what was good and bad about the record. A friend (who knows the situation) made comments about certain issues that relate to my knowledge of the band and their previous configuration. They were solid comments but I also feel as if they can easily be explained away by what amounts to simple research. A record should stand up to its predecessors and this one doesn't entirely do that.

So while I'm definitely attached to the material, I think my review works. What do you think?