Jeremy Enigk
OK Bear
(Lewis Hollow, 2009)

Jeremy Enigk may have written my favorite song of all time, “Guitar and Video Games.” Like most fanboys, I prefer Enigk’s old stuff to his new stuff. This drop-off is easier to illustrate with the two baffling opening titles from the solo album that officially marks as much work with Sunny Day Real Estate as not: “Mind Idea” and “Late of Camera.” But we’ve let him get away with this before. His most famous group was full of mystery, from once refusing to tour California and painting a whole album pink, to songs about doubles tennis and headless teddy bears. The bombastic delivery could send one on spiritual quests for the ears, with tricky basslines and unexpected codas and whatever was ultimately necessary to thrust the whole of my beliefs into his cryptic tunes.

OK Bear lacks Enigk’s sophisticated melodicism and vocal acrobatics, making any pretensions on his part a grievance to forgive at this point. “Mind Idea” turns out to be attached to a pulsating piano figure with strung-together phrases for skewed adornment: “Whispering loud and clear / The secret unsafe / Highway sprawl / The nations die.” His bored delivery doesn’t help. Rather than singing or screaming the tune, Enigk gargles the vocals like some backwashed half-spawn of Syd Barrett. In 1993, his moan was something to hang onto. Here, it’s harder to discern the point of passion in the songwriting, which is rather one-place-to-the-next. “Late of Camera” follows in the same vein, with notes that hang in the air rather than sink down on a beat, all textural wash with no musical target. And it sounds like it’s got circa-’67 Maureen Tucker on drums, which is a terrible match for Enigk. The inexplicably named “Sandwich Time” has horns in the breakdown and hints at a belated sense of humor, but still revolves around a tired plea to “atone your heart.”

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