Categories : Country + Western, Folk + Roots, Music Reviews, Top Rated.
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Rating: 4 / 5 Reviewer: Michelle Kennedy |
It easy to picture Zooey Deschanel in an old sepia toned boudoir surrounded by everyone’s grandmother’s pearls and lace gloves; her inexplicably beautiful eyes sparking in the fading light of a warm California evening. It’s less easy to picture M. Ward there. His retro is lo-fi: transistor radios and a smoky voice in the chilly Pacific Northwest air. It is this exact juxtaposition that makes Ward and Deschanel a gorgeous aesthetic combination and She & Him a band to be reckoned with.
Growing into her sound and skill as a songwriter, Deschanel has managed to find humour in the tragic ironies of love and loss. Where Volume One was a bright sunny day Volume Two is a summer romance that ends with your make-out partner walking away, hand in hand, with someone else. And it’s glorious. As they walk away you cry and chuckle to yourself a little because you aren’t too surprised; she told you this would happen and you have beautiful music to get you through. Until it all happens again… and it will.
Deschanel is well on her way to becoming solid songwriter but her work is augmented beautifully by Ward’s gorgeous production. His arrangements support her developing style and add a depth and dimensionality to what could fall into cliché and contrivance without his support. And his voice, his perfect voice, is so present on this record that it’s nearly impossible not to listen to the entire record over and over again.
