Midlake
The Courage of Others
(Bella Union, 2010)

Denton, TX five-piece Midlake has undergone a considerable metamorphosis in the decade since its inception. While The Courage of Others might only represent one more stage of an ongoing transmutation, it is absolutely a polished and impressive one. Songs here strike upon influences rarely indulged in today’s scene, well beyond the requisite harmonious CSN-isms and deeply into fleshier and differently nuanced full-band singer-songwriter styles of the ’70s.  It would be a disservice to employ a term like “soft rock” due to its negative connotation, especially given that Midlake circumnavigates the characteristic pitfalls of such a category with an assertive, fortified grace. Yet the bygone bands whose weaker moments are guilty of the wishy-washiness so reviled by intervening generations are still the bands whose better moments are the ones Midlake nods to with some reverence. The differences, however, are bold enough to grant Midlake a claim on a good measure of originality, and make for a damn fine follow-up to 2008’s The Trials of Van Occupanther.

A seriousness of purpose is one of the primary differences. There’s an intimacy and a solemnity both to the lyrics and the melodic tone of these songs that, while beautiful and at times even breezy, quietly insists upon its due consideration. Compared to Van Occupanther, part of the new album’s heaviness is obviously from the removal of the fictitious foil, as Van Occupanther somewhat obliquely told the tale of an explorer plodding outward through some historical wilderness (Western Expansion-era US maybe, or some far-flung British colonist perhaps; the ongoing narrative didn’t matter so much, as the songs stood so well independently). The Courage of Others comes through no such filter, and is about as straightforward as any complex set of uneasy emotions can be, arresting in the balance of their apparent honesty and of their discerning musical accompaniment. “I will never have the courage of others,” vocalist/songwriter Tim Smith sings in the title song. “I will not approach you at all / I was always taught to worry about things / All the many things you can’t control,” just before the calm, plaintive tones of a flute, the continuing, steady strums of guitars, and well-defined bass, all gaining melodic determination until soft, uncomplicated drums manifest confidently towards the end. Courageous, if only in its emotional honesty, it is also nothing if not controlled.

While there’s distinctly a shared sensibility between today’s Midlake and the ’70s outfit Bread, thankfully Midlake—whether due solely to newer recording technology, or the more introspective gravitas of its inspiration and delivery—does not share what most listeners nowadays would dismiss as Bread’s water-thin “easy listening” grooves. They’re not quite as “muzak” as Bread, not as lighthearted or country-pop as America, and though part of Courage measures up to the calmer moments of CSN’s self-titled first album, it’s ultimately more trouble-minded than that as well. It’s overcast and uncertain, and therefore perhaps more in line with how we embrace our modern emotional realities. A song like “Fortune”, for example, is brief and euphonic; its acoustic leads are deft, the delicate, singular whine of analog organ eventually giving way to flute, all perfectly unimposing and judiciously arranged. There’s an archaic lyrical phrasing here and there, sure, including terms like “holiness” and “evil.” Yet it also remains frank enough to toe a line between allegory and confessional that makes for the best kind of poetry: Passionate but not naked, artificial but not unnatural. “While the rains would come / While the end was unknown / Nothing had proved too much / No path was solely my own,” Smith sings, in what could be taken as a gratifying and fleeting ode to the idea that uncertainty, while inescapable, loves company.

To their credit, Midlake also knows when to keep it short, fading songs out and otherwise wrapping them up before overstaying their welcome, which goes a long way in mitigating the ultimately somnambulant quality of Smith’s vocals and the overall texture of the music. It’s admittedly hard to stay focused for a thorough start-to-finish listen (and if Van Occupanther was any indication, Midlake certainly prizes “the album” as an important conceptual medium), but any effort to that end is rewarding no matter where you start or how far you get. Their influences may be on their sleeve, but that says nothing of quality, and if this record had come from some endless smoke-smothered sessions in LA’s Laurel Canyon scene 30 years ago, it’d be the worthy stuff of legend today.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]

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