War Poems, We Rested: A whopping six years after the somewhat vague debut Ignite the Rest Kelley Deal and Mike Montgomery pool their quirky indie rock skills for a second R. Ring-Album.
to certify that War Poems, We Rested is much more compactly composed and more accessible as well as more directly staged than its predecessor, it must be understood in relative terms: the songwriting still retains the axis R. Ring (Breeders-Sister Deal needs no introduction; Montgomery is the one Candyland Recording Studio-Owner and member of Ample) an almost fragmentary sketchiness in the songwriting and an instinctive sloppiness that is wonderfully captivating off the track.
That R. Ring is so far away from the two traditional main bands of his protagonists (here once again led by drummer Laura King from Bat Fangs be accompanied, which in turn is also responsible for some arrangements) moves, as the package insert of the debut attests, but at least no longer applies, even if the same Still Life almost dramatic and theatrical in the best way Breedersmanner, only to indulge in whimsical contemplation, swaying and rumbling and droning and jingling: “All I want is a cigarette, and someone to pay the rent.“
In the more contemplative carried shuffling of Likeable the two partners later chant several times “I consider myself very likeable“ and are not only right, but also cement the feel for such casually thrown lines that remain catchy with a conciseness in the ephemeral in the midst of an aesthetic that has fallen out of time.
Why R. Ring (despite theoretical scene celebrity bonus and corresponding songs) felt off the radar of public perception remains a mystery in this respect – everything is actually there to warm the indie heart (without making it enthusiastic, admittedly). And that with a fine bandwidth and variability – always a few centimeters away from really big songs, which are less missed than deliberately left behind.
Hug rumbles straighter in the effortless nonchalance of nonchalance and Stole Eye bursts gruffly out of Montgomery’s retracted falsetto reduction. Exit Music cultivates a warm, ambient and two-dimensional hallucinogen whose avant-garde homeliness shifts a latently atonal strumming into a shimmering, melancholic trance. Cartoon Heart / Build Me a Question is snappier and faster aligned crisp rock’n’roll with twisting verve, meanwhile Def Sup (before the scrubbing guitar’s dissonant fraying love) to a disarmingly bellyy bass groove a la funky Warpaint sets and also Volunteer similar, only more throttled, his art and post-punk bewitched with a beguilingly aimless sedative.
On the one hand, the best are the self-contained moments of the record – if Embers on a Sleepwalk charmingly remote suggests the sad piano ballad or in Lighter Than a Berry a troubled striding Montgomery shows a brave spirit of optimism in the subtext, but leaves open where an accusation becomes a rallying cry – and on the other hand the general attitude of R. Ring, to completely hide the egos involved and let them act in the spirit of the matter. Symptomatic of this ends War Poems, We Rested therefore with the almost title track War Poems in the form of a gracefully forgiving instrumental that belongs entirely to cellist Lori Goldston as a calm and deliberate post-rock thoughtfulness investigating beauty. What a harmonious conclusion for a charismatic finger exercise of a sympathetically grounded album without any vanities.
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