I feel for Chris Collingwood. I really do.<\/p>\n
No one should be forced to spend their lives trapped inside of someone else\u2019s conception of who they are\u2014even if \u201csomeone else\u201d is an audience of thousands of fans who, truth be told, often prefer more of the same to any sort of growth or change from their favorite artists.<\/p>\n
For 20 years, Collingwood was best known as frontman, rhythm guitarist and co-songwriter for those champions of witty, literate power-pop Fountains Of Wayne. His new project Look Park arrives as a declaration of independence, a fresh start on his own terms, supported by an all-star cast of Mitchell Froom (production and keys), Davey Faragher (bass) and Michael Urbano (drums).<\/p>\n
Eager to craft a new musical identity for himself, when Collingwood started writing for this album, he \u201cthrew out the ones that sounded like FOW songs. It took a while to start thinking outside of four-piece, power chord arrangements.\u201d The sound Collingwood and Froom eventually settled on is characterized by spaciousness and a certain sophistication, an emphasis on keys and atmospherics over guitars and drive whose melodic elegance reminded me at times of Joe Jackson\u2019s Night And Day<\/i> album.<\/p>\n
Indeed, the opening duo of \u201cShout Pt. 1\u201d and \u201cStars Of New York\u201d pair bright, airy production with shimmering layers of keys and Mellotron, delivering tunes that are urbane and sparkly and nearly guitar-free. At the center, naturally, lies Collingwood\u2019s elastic, often plaintive voice. Somehow on even the most expansive of tunes, he always sounds a little wistful and vulnerable; riddled with doubt seems to be his resting state. <\/p>\n
\u201cBreezy\u201d delves further into that wistfulness, focusing on a piano-and-acoustic duet with clever background vocals by Mike Viola,\u00a0Flora Reed and Philip Price (the latter pair from Winterpills). The string-accented, introspective-yet-grandiose \u201cAeroplane\u201d is the first time you catch a clear scent of FOW, as Collingwood attacks a familiar Fountains theme (the travails of travel) with more emphasis on the guitars and a familiar phrase or two (\u201cslow rotating gaze\u201d). And then there\u2019s the oh-so-meta \u201cMinor Is The Lonely Key,\u201d a song about songwriting, with a rather continental sound.<\/p>\n
Collingwood seems to coast effortlessly through the sing-songy \u201cYou Can Come Round If You Want To,\u201d the clever \u201cI\u2019m Gonna Haunt This Place,\u201d (\u201cLike ghosts of old friends I\u2019ve murdered in song \/ I\u2019m gonna haunt this place when I\u2019m gone\u201d), and the gently snarky \u201cCrash That Piano,\u201d before Look Park<\/i> closes on a high note with \u201cGet On Home,\u201d a lilting folk tune reminiscent of FOW\u2019s \u201cValley Winter Song\u201d: gentle, melodic, and ultimately uplifting.<\/p>\n
Collingwood\u2019s FOW songs were always the more impressionistic and less character-driven ones, and that tendency is accentuated here, but his outlook hasn\u2019t fundamentally changed. He\u2019s still an observant witness to human foibles, with a rather Eeyore-ish fatalism about him; even at their most optimistic, you have the sense in many of these songs that disaster may be lurking just around the corner.<\/p>\n
What this all adds up to feels like something less than the sum of its parts. Look Park<\/i> is beautifully arranged and performed and displays abundant craft and intelligence, yes. The issue for me is that these songs feel like they have no edges, which inevitably mutes their impact. In purposely steering away from the sort of sharply-drawn character sketches and shamelessly hummable hooks that characterized his former group, Collingwood delivers an album that sometimes verges on colorless.<\/p>\n