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To paraphase a friend of ours who was himself paraphrasing, sometimes we at copacetic have to fight them here so that you don't have to fight them there where you are. You might hear about Vague Angels being led by Chris Leo, who is the brother of the redoubtable rock powerhouse Ted Leo, and maybe you think you'll give Vague Angels a try based on that pedigree. Well, if we're using war metaphors here, you'll probably want to take your finger off the trigger and maybe put the safety on.
According to the press sheet, this Leo "desire[s] for clarity of both sonic and oral expression to eclipse the need to preserve the formalism of the pop song." What that basically means is that Leo reads poetry with an exaggerated, over-affected sing-songy beatnik inflection over meandering, repetitive musical backdrops, mostly folky/bluesy strumming and/or psychedelic guitar. To get an idea of Leo's vocal inflection, imagine a guy who worships Bob Dylan and Lou Reed and likes to really draaaw out his sylllablllesss. Even "lake" becomes "lakhhhhe." Among his other sins: he refers to himself by his full name in one song, and in another he describes a girl "twitching and pant[ing]" and then demonstrates the panting. A couple of the songs are instrumentals, and a few others would be more tolerable that way, like "The Vague Angels of Vagary," which has chiming guitar work reminiscent of Archer Prewitt. "Just Blow, Don Quixote, Blow!" could possibly be mistaken for a Damon & Naomi song at first with its lead played on bass guitar, except for the Rhodes piano and of course the vocals. The only real siging comes on "It's a Promise," which was written and sung by the conspicuously uncredited Young-Ah Kim. Be warned that this younger Leo brother is not a junior Pharmacist—he isn't even working the register at Walgreens. He's down the street working at Kinko's. Don't say we won't take a bullet for you. (mike.05.06)
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