"End of Love," Clem Snide

New York City-based alt-country shoegazers Clem Snide haven't scored a spot on any of Wes Anderson's soundtracks, but it's only a matter of time; Anderson's clever, fey portrayals of life in boarding school, Hamilton Heights, or the South Pacific would align well with frontman Eef Barzelay's strummy, incomparable wit. There's another overlap between their oeuvre and Anderson's: just as some faulted Anderson's The Life Aquatic for its retreat into an insular world of fanciful treasures and boyish imagination, the outside world increasingly immaterial to the hermetic echo chamber of Steve Zissou's cross-sectioned good ship "Belafonte," so does End of Love embrace cultural reference over emotional resonance. Whereas their last three albums were defined by spare, mid-tempo lyrical ballads, End of Love emphasizes wry rockers such as "The Sound of German Hip-Hop" and "Fill Me With Your Light," which tend to plod forward and end with Barzelay repeating a line until it becomes absurd. The absence of multi-instrumentalist and producer Jason Glasser also has the band struggling to fill their songs out; awkward guitar riffs and correspondence-school drumming contribute to the album's overall slack feeling. And "Tiny European Cars" might be the nadir of the band's catalogue; rarely has so ethereal a melody been so undone by its lyrics. ("One of many ancient travesties / We're all descendents of the Pharisees." What?) There are exceptions: "Something Beautiful" uses minor chords and a banjo to paint a saucy picture of romantic frustration, "When We Become" makes fine, understated use of strings, piano, and voice, and the kickoff title track manipulates its cadences and turns into a miniature epic: "Maybe we should just release the doves / 'Cause no one will survive the end of love." "Made for TV Movie," however, is the one unqualified success; with little more than his voice, guitar, and a five-year-old backup singer, Barzelay balances describing a Lucille Ball biopic with the singer's own doubts about intimacy: "'Cause happiness is boring / It's always black and white / The good times never last, / And the chocolates move too fast for us all." End of Love doesn't attain anything near the formidable beauty of Your Favorite Music or the gorgeous Soft Spot - still, even in a holding pattern like this one, Clem Snide promises to say at least something beautiful.