New Music Tuesday: Part 2

This post was submitted by frequent contributor Mike Dyer.

Too spare. Too full. Just right.

I felt too much like Goldilocks listening to Windsor for the Derby's How We Lost: it's an album of extremes that left me wanting the opposite of whatever I was hearing. When it was spare, I thought it was too spare to be interesting. When it was textured, the sound was too full to be enjoyed. And those are really the qualities of this album: too spare and too full. I kept wanting them to dial the extremes back just a bit. In two great cases, they did, and it was... just right.

It's too spare

In many artistic mediums, space thrills. In theatre, the long silent pause between lines is when the audience leans in, searching for a hint of where the drama is headed; in film, it's the slow reveal reaction shot, not the action shot, the really kills; and in the visual arts, it's the expertly-placed single drop of paint on an otherwise pristine canvas that can turn your head in a gallery. But creating space in art always teeters dangerously close to artistic self-indulgence.

In Windsor's case, there seems to be too much self-indulgence when it comes to space in their music. At times, certain tracks feel like think pieces that were created without thought of the audience. There isn't enough going on to keep it interesting; more than once I glanced at the counter to see how long I had left in a track. The extreme example of this extreme is "Robin Robinette:" it's just space. It's totally empty, low-level undulating and repetitive guitar chords. It's silence with no dialogue. "Let Go" and "Troubles" also fall victim to this too-spare-ness, but not to the same extent.

It's too full

Admittedly, "too full" isn't as much of a problem as being "too spare." I don't think many people criticize Jackson Pollack anymore for too many drops of paint on his canvasses; even I liked The Bourne Supremacy, with it's cuts paced every second or so; and I've completely lost count of how many times I've seen Spring Awakening. So, yeah, "too full" can work really well. I just can't think of a great musical example off the top of my head. I guess that tells me Windsor isn't it.

The problem is that including both extremes on one album is really jarring. It's not even that there's a single song that swings back and forth between spare and full; it's an album-wide, song-by-song yo-yo that didn't sit right with me. The heavy, racing riffs of "Maladies" coming right after the wide-open "Let Go" doesn't create a sort of tension between the two; you just notice they're really different, too different maybe. That sort of extreme transition is replayed throughout the album. You'll see. FWIW: "What We Want," is probably the "Robin Robinette of the too full tracks. Not a smidge of room to breathe.

It's just Right

All that said, there are two pretty great, dramatic and interesting tracks, however. "Forgotten" is--finally--a textured and intimate track that, even now, I find myself going back to listen to again and again. It has a sense of human-ness that much of the album, in it's extremes, doesn't. And then there's "Spirit Fade," which ends the album on an upbeat, hopeful note. It's a complex track that is never overpowering, and does the best job on the album of balancing between the extremes I've mentioned. If you're not inclined to check out the whole album, these two tracks are definitely worth your time.

How We Lost by Windsor for the Derby is available on