Plumbiferous Media

Jason Lytle’s early career con­sisted not of music, but of spon­sored skate­board­ing. After a knee injury, music cap­tured Lytle’s atten­tion, and he formed the Cal­i­for­nia indie group Grandaddy. This seem­ingly imper­fect method of tran­si­tion­ing to musi­cal suc­cess has sur­pris­ingly worked quite nicely for Lytle. His first solo album, Yours Truly, the Com­muter, which was released on the 19th, is an inter­est­ingly styl­is­tic LP that clearly shows sig­nif­i­cant ability.

Lytle’s vocals are in much the same spirit as on his ear­lier work with Grandaddy, which is cer­tainly a good thing. Per­pet­u­ally just a bit sharp around the edges, and always emo­tion­ally invested, the vocals are an enjoy­able, vital part of the album. Lytle never van­ishes behind the instru­men­tals, but at the same time mixes very well with the sounds pro­duced by the other instru­ments. Though the vocals are occa­sion­ally some­what breathy, espe­cially on tracks such as “Yours Truly” (the title track) and “Ghost of My Old Dog,” this doesn’t dimin­ish their strength, as the breath­i­ness is directed towards improv­ing the sound of the track, rather than less­en­ing the tech­ni­cal ele­gance of the vocals.

Lytle has taken the every­man theme implied by the “Com­muter” of the album title and expanded that sense of the pedes­trian into truly inter­est­ing, thought-provoking lyrics. Lytle cre­ates an impas­sioned cry tinged slightly with anger in the title track by begin­ning “Last thing I heard I was left for dead.” By the end of that track, Lytle tri­umphantly pro­claims “I may be limp­ing but I’m climb­ing home.” This force­ful direc­tion con­tin­ues through Yours Truly, expressed through the canyons of “Fly­ing Thru Canyons,” the lone­li­ness of “Rollin’ Home Alone,” and the rem­i­nis­cences of “You’re Too Gone.” While Yours Truly does con­tain some weaker lyrics, too often paired with rep­e­ti­tion, such as the rather unin­ge­nious lyrics on “It’s the Week­end,” but this issue fades in the face of the major­ity of the lyri­cal con­tent. For the most part, Lytle has put together a lyri­cally excel­lent album.

Musi­cally though, Lytle’s style in Yours Truly, the Com­muter is pleas­ant, but not excel­lent. Some tracks do have very suc­cess­ful instru­men­tals: “I Am Lost (and the Moment Can­not Last)” shows excel­lent phras­ing and direc­tion with its con­tin­u­ous line that grows in tan­dem with the vocals and lyrics through­out the track; “Für­get It” acts as proof that Lytle can cre­ate instru­men­tal lines suc­cess­ful enough to even make strong, pri­mar­ily instru­men­tal tracks; “This Song Is the Mute But­ton” is an equally strong exam­ple of Lytle’s abil­ity to use cre­ative tran­si­tions (the track begins with a clas­si­cal excerpt super­im­posed with a mod­ern drum­beat). But at the same time, Yours Truly can seem plagued with prob­lems. Even on the most directed, pointed tracks, one line, be it a key­board drum or gui­tar line, remains highly repet­i­tive and com­pletely sta­tic, some­times even ruin­ing the effect oth­er­wise achieved.

While the large amount of mix­ing that occurs between the vocals and instru­men­tals cre­ates a very strongly cohe­sive sound which cre­ates some excel­lent tracks such as “Rollin’ Home Alone” and “Fly­ing Thru Canyons,” it also leads to a sig­nif­i­cant amount of co-dependence. As a result, nei­ther the vocals nor instru­men­tals can sup­port a track when the other fails. Both “Birds Encour­aged Him” and “It’s the Week­end” quickly become the weak­est tracks on the album regard­less of how sur­pris­ingly active the instru­men­tals are in the lat­ter, and when the instru­men­tals become more repet­i­tive and less inven­tive, as they often tend to do, tracks quickly start to lose any strength with which they might have began.

Jason Lytle’s first solo album fol­low­ing his work with Grandaddy is quite suc­cess­ful in nearly every aspect. Lytle’s ardent voice, his impas­sioned lyrics, and his gen­er­ally well-considered instru­men­tals make for a well-constructed album, and the flaws present in Yours Truly, the Com­muter can be over­looked in the face of the rest of the album. Lytle has cre­ated an album as good if not bet­ter than his ear­lier work and cer­tainly good on its own.

This post is tagged 70-79, Jason Lytle