How It Ends

Sometimes I'm so ignorant I make myself spew. Listening to the imprecisely Eastern European tones of Devotchka, complete with backward k that I cant type because I don't have a backward k key on my computer letter board, I thought .....well that they were from Eastern Europe or somewhere similar. It turns out however that Devotchka are a quartet from Denver Colorado which the last time I checked ......okay I admit I've never checked, is nowhere near Eastern Europe, or Western Europe for that matter.
All of which geographical stupidity leads me to write what I would have written anyway. That Devotchka are without doubt the most fascinating band I have had the good fortune to acquaint myself with since I first heard The Arcade Fire back whenever that was. How it Ends was originally released in 2004 but on the back of their contribution to the soundtrack of under whelming indie film "Little Miss Sunshine" has finally garnered a release over here. The band name is taken from the film "A Clockwork Orange"( It translates as "young girl"). None of this in any way helps in explaining what they sound like.
Multi- instrumentalists the band offers an intoxicating concoction of Romany, Greek, Slavic and South American-influenced sounds stirred by the distractingly mordant voice of front man Nick Urata and mysteriously spiced with an esoteric array of instruments that includes trumpet, bouzouki, accordion, vibraphone, glockenspiel, and the other-worldly-sounding Theremin as well as more traditional stuff like guitar, organ and piano. Like a far more expansive Calexico, and one who may have some vague idea to enjoy themselves the band provide a bewitching array of fourteen songs and an animated video that popped up on my computer screen so unexpectedly I thought I had overdosed on "Revels" and started hallucinating.
Not only is the album a beguiling mix of cultural sounds but it's also truly impressive in it's effortless mastery of numerous musical styles. Stunning opening track "You Love Me" sounds both devastated and strangely euphoric , a dichotomy that pops up elsewhere on the album. Mind you sometimes there is no doubt about a songs subjective tenor." Dearly Departed" is a truly forlorn ballad throbbing with loss. "Such A Lovely Thing" is as schizophrenic as music gets a truly giddy melody carousel ling around Urata,s hysterical laments of "You only love me when I'm leaving". "The Enemy Guns" is a more conventional rock song but with a non-titular dread inspired instead by loneliness. "Viens Avec Moi" sounds like Romanian funk while the punchy bass tuba of "Twenty Six Temptations" contrasts sharply with Urata,s higher range yearning. "We're Leaving" is a frankly mind bending melange of mariachi brass and kooky howling. "This Place Is Haunted" is austere by comparison with delicately plucked acoustic guitar while "Reprise" an instrumental is tremulously gorgeous- like a Michael Nyman soundtrack. Only "Lunnaya Pogonka" , another instrumental and an over eccentric one is anything less than riveting.
There are more ideas and indeed instruments on How It Ends than can be found in the current top forty ....albums probably. It's beautifully played , adeptly recorded and mixed by Craig Schumacher and the vocals of Nick Urata are astonishingly diverse and when he harmonises with Jeanie Schroder the effect is quite astounding. Take a bow Nick Urata, Jeanie Schroder, Shawn King and Tom Hagerman this is my album of the year no contest. It should be yours too , but lets fervently hope that this album is not the end for Devotchka , that there is much more of their intoxicating music to come.

It starts, inauspiciously enough, with a strummed acoustic guitar. What follows on How It Ends is a fantasy of drunken gypsy weddings with noirish, debauched delivery flourished with accordion, sousaphone, theramin, tuba, piano, bouzouki, strings and tenor triangle.

Although centred on Eastern European folk, How It Ends is an unusual mongrel of klezmer rhythms, mariachi trumpets, punk guitar surf music drums and romantic strings.

Second track, The Enemy Guns, offers tense, distorted guitar riffs, before horns and Nick Urata's unsettling tenor turn it into a disorientating spaghetti western. The song's military drums clatter into No One Is Watching, which itself is twenty-five seconds worth of battle and loneliness.

The glockenspiel of Dearly Departed sets a soothing lullaby tone, but Urata's suffocating croon as he mourns for a love gone away is totally despairing ("I miss your heart beating next to mine / flesh of my flesh, soul of my soul / come back home"). Later, Urata harmonises with himself on This Place Is Haunted, while it means the lyrics are often unintelligible, we hear the laughter of children, likely ghosts of the place, before the song abruptly ends.

Charlotte Mittnacht (The Fabulous Destiny Of...) is a bowed, basque-flavoured instrumental; Twenty-Six Temptations is a wallowing and brooding tale of love and loss; and Such A Lovely Thing offers suspicion, violence and doubt in its four-and-a-half minutes.

Despite all the depression and gloom amid the lyrical dramas, this is not a joyless listen. The characters in the songs might be dead or missing, but the band are energised, gothic and exotic. An Eastern-bloc party, if you like.

This Album is a breath of fresh air, lots of influences, lots of emotions. The band are so different to the rest of whats out there, the crooning Nick Urata, Jeanie Shroder and her awesome Tuba, Shawn Kings drums and Tom Hagermans fantastic violin and accordion playing all come together in a perfectly tuned machine creating something beautiful.

They are even better live!! If you get the chance check them out.