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...At the Moment of Our Most Needing or If Only They Could Turn Around, They Would Know They Weren't Alone

Rock Plaza Central
...At the Moment of Our Most Needing, or If Only They Could Turn Around, They Would Know They Weren't Alone

[Paper Bag; 2009]

8.0

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Not to knock his vocals, but Chris Eaton is more storyteller than singer. He's published two novels, including a "cover" of Thomas Hardy's A Pair of Blues Eyes, and his band Rock Plaza Central's third full-length, Are We Not Horses?, was an odd concept album about mechanical equines who develop their own horsey self-awareness. Even singing, he remains a narrator-- not simply because he's relating connected events, but more crucially because the inflections and expressive accents in his performances suggest a man caterwauling in character. As a songwriter, he creates full mythologies like a Joss Whedon unburdened by the strictures of television, and as a singer, he gives his fantastical characters voice, but it's his band that makes those worlds seem real and relatable. On Horses, they gave his valedictories and conspiracies a soft, elegiac edge, and on their fourth and equally majestic album, they find new ways to illustrate his tales.

Despite that long album title (and what's wrong with such a wordy title?), there is no overarching narrative quite as pronounced as the one that rode Horses. Eaton has said he was inspired by Faulkners' Light in August, but barely any trace of the novel appears in the music. There is a sense of a journey undertaken, battles fought, ideas considered, destinations reached. If that impressionistic tack means At the Moment lacks the full conceptual thrust of its predecessor, it nevertheless feels somewhat more approachable, as if you could put it on shuffle and proceed through this strange world logically. Of course, Rock Plaza Central are no Decemberists: Accessibility is not necessarily their aim, nor is winking literary approximation. With no need to sell their erudition, they are free to rock more freely.

So opener "Oh I Can" rises like a zombie out of the silence, with a lumbering tom rhythm, a lurching bassline, and cinematic strings all building into a full chorus. By the end of the song, the band is harmonizing behind Eaton's testifying: "I could give down and cry," he sings, "but I won't give down and cry." It's a strong lyrical and vocal hook, but as At the Moment unfolds, it focuses more intently on the music than on Eaton's lyrics, as if only through Blake Howard's galloping drums (his sudden entrance on "[The World Is] Good Enough" is one of the album's most energizing moments) and those mournful horns could they ever convey this story.

These songs mark a slightly different direction for the band: They're using pretty much the same arsenal of instruments that colored Are We Not Horses?, but they're deploying them in different ways to make different sounds and play different roles. There's a classic-rock vibe on most of these songs, but especially on "Holy Rider" and "(Don't You Believe the Words of) Handsome Men", where banjo, violin, and horns execute the pyrotechnics typically reserved for electric guitar. The result is a heavier, denser, ponderous sound that makes At the Moment no mere sequel, but its own sovereign entity.

Contrasting these rock songs are quieter tracks like "O Lord, How Many Are My Foes?", which sets Eaton's wartime prayer against minimal accompaniment. A lone trumpet plays an ascending scale like it's ushering his words to God's ears, but a small, curious, arrhythmic percussion (unidentifiable, but it sounds like a pair of woodblocks) keep him tethered to the earth. Instrumentals "Country C" and "The Long Dead March" further the plot gracefully, and while some classic rock-oriented bands might release guitar albums, At the Moment is perhaps a violin album. Fiona Stewart, who doubles on trombone, switches between lead and rhythm parts fluidly, playing the main riff on "Holy Rider", adding a windswept backdrop to "(The World Is) Good Enough", and sympathetically shadowing Eaton's vocals on "Handsome Men".

"We all love like battalions, we all love with abandon," Eaton sings on "We Are Full of Light (That Blinds Us at the Moment of Our Most Needing)", as Howard beats out a Dodos-style rhythm. It could be the closer, but it's not-- just more rising action. Rock Plaza Central have a strange destination and a denouement in mind, and the band makes the story sound like it's set in the real world with unbelievably real stakes.

— Stephen M. Deusner, June 30, 2009


Related

Albums

Are We Not Horses?

Rock Plaza Central: Are We Not Horses?

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