Archer Prewitt, Three

Welcome to the home where no one ever goes, begins Archer Prewitt�s third album, as tentative mellotron strings score taut lines in the air above his everyman voice. This is a visit to a musical haunted house with more good ghosts than bad, a gloomy abandoned mansion whose creaky floorboards still rock and pop every now and then. This album has often been appraised�both for the better, and for the worse�as an homage, throwback, nod, etc. to the lush pop sensibilities of 70s rock, a re-realization of a musical era akin to Josh Rouse�s 1972. This may be true, but there�s something more there, something I think most critics are missing. You can hear it in the chilly autumnal stroll of �Over The Line�, where Prewitt croons, In the darkness your eyes would shine, I had it all. It's more than an anachronism; it's a deliberate, welcome displacement that settles you in and envelopes you for the duration.

So any anachronistic quaintness Prewitt's compositions may have informs not only his retrospective glance, but also the slightly eerie, slightly pleasant feeling I get from listening to a song that was recorded recently but sounds like it�s been around for decades--the same feeling I got when I first heard 1972 nearly a year ago. It�s maybe the same feeling you get when you return to your hometown after many years away, or watch a Wes Anderson movie. (Indeed, the harpsichord of �Tear Me All Away� sounds like it was ripped straight out of Mark Mothersbaugh�s Rushmore score.) The songs on Three, much like Anderson�s movies, evoke a time that is definitely in the past, though they are set in the supposed present, and the alternately discomfiting and inviting responses they elicit are intentional and important. When we sit down in someone�s wood-paneled, shag-carpeted basement rec room, we know something�s not quite right, but we�re still cozy as hell.

And this is a cozy album, a very complete package, rich with compositional ideas and song structures, tempo and mood changes that make for songs within songs, and evocative but familiar-seeming lyrics. It lulls you in with ballads like �Over The Line� and �Atmosphere� and then rocks your face off with the cocky strut of �Second Time Trader�, then gives you the gorgeous coda of "The Day To Day" for the walk home.

Prewitt also departs successfully from conventional indie wisdom throughout the album and bravely makes his own foray into well-trodden territory without getting lost there. He embraces the overused adjective "Beatlesque" in the best possible way on "When I�m With You", and "I�m Coming Over" is audacious when you consider the already-crowded field of Bachrach revivalists. He puts his hipster credibility on the line but emerges victorious when he belts out a hard-rock �Ugnh!� in the middle of �No Defense�, whispers �Baby� during the breakdown of �Atmosphere�, or channels Ian Anderson for the chorus of �Behind Your Sun��and he doesn�t wink once.

Indeed, the New Sincerity aesthetic seems to have found yet another musical acolyte in Prewitt, who served enough time in the paragon of hipster haughtiness that is the 90s indie scene to know what he didn�t want his solo albums to sounds like, and he�s developed the confidence to throw his slim frame behind the sentimental lyrics, lush strings, brazen horns, and proggy arrangements, and weather the inevitable snorts from his post-rock peers. Thank god.

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