The Evaporators “Gassy Jack and Other Tales” Review
Fitting that the title of The Evaporators’ latest release is aimed at a British Columbian pioneer known for his outgoing ability to support any conversation with his endless amusing exchanges. Fitting in that the group’s lead singer, affectionately known by the public as Nardwuar the Human Serviette, has grown to near legendary status himself in the greater Vancouver region for his…gassiness…as a local radio & television personality. Even more proper, possibly, is the album cover’s ode to The Subhumans as it pays tribute to a band that has historically been given little credit while it continually made genuine music. Such an album cover is terribly appropriate given that The Evaporators, after some twenty one years of playing songs together while flaunting their commercial inelasticity, have now released their finest, most dedicated, genuine collection of songs.
Not to say that the band hasn’t focused historically on making albums that are musically quenching, but The Evaporators have typically been viewed as a side project, one that allowed its members to blow off some steam aside from their respective day-jobs. So much a side project that despite the band’s extensive time line it had until this album produced only three others before it. Gassy Jack, however, sounds and feels as though it were made by a band dedicated primarily to it. In another show of dedication Stephen Hamm took over the primary role as bassist in the band for the album and subsequent shows as John Collins (who still contributed heavily) dedicated his time to The New Pornographers. With that commitment the band refined its sound and focus, pushing it far beyond favorites such as 1998′s “I Gotta Rash,” and 2004′s “Addicted to Cheese.” And while the album’s tone isn’t entirely unique, still reaching out at times to Sasquatch and “Crispy Space Bacon,” The Evaporators developed Gassy Jack with an emphasis strong in terms of having a nature of actual substance; whatever that may mean.
Nardwuar pleads “please understand my emotion” on the fantastic “What If I Care About The People Who Live in the Seas Around Me,” which is as adult a statement as any other I’ve ever heard from the near forty year old singer. The rapid bass introduction sounding of an honestly fulfilling line from Morningwood’s delicately horrible “Nth Degree,” the song develops into a chorus of shattering guitar surrounding Nardwaur’s almost surprisingly harmonic voice. Continuing the strange transformation “St. Roch” appears as close to a classic rock Evaporators as “Evatone Soundsheets” is to being the band’s street walking garage rock anthem.
Far from it for anyone to judge another, especially one that they only know through recordings or television spots from their youth, but the difference in direction that this album offers leads one to believe that Gassy Jack is a turning point for Nardwuar. While never appearing to shy away from conversation he’s never sounded more confident with expressing the ideas of his songs than with Gassy Jack. So too, the band sounds as though the album departs from a routine of playing recklessly for the sake of doing so in favor of attempting to focus on the ability that always seemed to harbor slightly beneath the surface of each previous recording. No more apparent is this than with the track “Desolation Sound” which starts with a witty skipping beat before safely easing into the background, allowing Nardwaur to explain, “It’s here I feel away from the world, it’s here I feel away from the cold. It’s here I will grow old, too bad I’ll to what I’m told.” It’s an honest shame that it took him twenty years to write his best song about adolescensce.
The Evaporators “You Got Me Into This, Now Get Me Out!” [MP3]
