“Cracked Open” A Strong, Personal Second Album

May 14th, 2010 by admin

Zach Vinson
Cracked Open
Independent, 2009
Rating: 8.0

So Much to Blame (Zach Vinson) from Zach Vinson on Vimeo.

In late 2006, a barely 20 year old Zach Vinson released his first solo album, Why All The Armor, under the moniker Aching Wings. It was recorded in Zach’s church, bedroom, and other locations far from the often confining walls of a professional studio. Consisting mostly of rainy-day piano ballads, Armor had all the honesty and confusion that you’d expect from a musician of that age. What the album did not have (and much to its credit) was naivete. These were songs about loneliness, desperation, death, finishing off with a somber but subtly joyful benediction that celebrated the passing of time. Zach brought to these mature topics a youthful eye. He didn’t so much try to figure things out. Instead, he took it all in, offering through song what easy answers could never give. It was, and still is, a tremendous album.

His follow up, the professionally-produced Cracked Open, is an excellent album that is, fortunately, not visited by the much-feared curse of the sophomore slump. The first track, “Little Birdie,” opens with a soft, finger-picked electric guitar, then suddenly erupts with raw, even punkish guitar riffs and snare thumps. Already listeners know that they are in for something different. Reminiscent of such artists as Ben Kweller and Pedro the Lion, “Little Birdie” is about that awful feeling you get when you see an animal get hit by a car. Now there’s a topic you don’t hear covered in song much.

“Birdie” is followed by the pleasant, electrified “It Don’t Come Easy.” Vocally, Zach is on his A-game here. This track is a fine example of how much his singing has improved since his debut. Lyrically, the track also shows a great deal of improvement and maturity. As the opening lyrics sing, “Learning how to love is like exploring/in a cave where you can’t see the light/When your flashlight beam is all but dead, close your eyes and hold out your hand.” Unlike not-a-few radio-ready love songs, this track offers a view of love that isn’t just about “feeling good.” In fact, the song has a good deal of dread packed in there, accentuated by the “cave” imagery. Yet, what this song does offer, and quite affectively, is a focus on human companionship. In other words, even when the lights are going out around us, hell, at least we’ve got each other.

Zach’s phenomenal piano talents come to the fore on the track “So Much to Blame.” I had the privilege of hearing this song before it was recorded, and Zach spoke a bit about the songs topic, or at least the direction it was taking at the time. Basically, it’s a song reminding us that sometimes the best thing you can do is leave. Those of us hounded by Facebook-friend requests from old high-school chums stuck in their old towns and just dying to re-live the past will know exactly what this song is saying. As the chorus yells, “Walk on your feet, ride your bike, drive your car, you don’t care you just got to leave this place.” The song also has a pre-chorus that’s top-notch. It’s got that 70s cool to it, reminiscent of piano rockers such as Dr. John, Elton John, and Billy Joel.

One of Cracked Open’s standout tracks is also the darkest. The folksy “All The Sins Of Men” uses allusions to Dostoevsky’s tales of human ills and evils. Here, the guitar is strummed eerily, while the lyrics are sung with a disconnected tone that suits the song’s theme very well. As the song opens, “Of orphans and of widows, I have laughed at their demise/lying naked in the alley, as the sleet poured from the skies/At my mother and my father, I have raged and I have lied/ And my bastard sons and daughters couldn’t find me if they tried.”

While Cracked Open is a step forward in regards to its composition, and at times more personal lyrically, it does lack some of the youthfulness and confusion that made Why All The Armor such a strong album. Sure, these attitudes can’t simply be thrown on whenever you want. Moreover, Zach, now married and older, has a more mature perspective that Cracked Open does benefit from. Certainly the way he deals with relationships, loss, and life’s darker corners now will look much different than in younger days. But, call me a cynic, I kind of miss those older songs in which he didn’t even attempt to figure it all out. Nothing beats a troubled song wherein the narrator simply stands (or trembles) in awe of life’s danger and strangeness.

I also miss the lo-fi vibe that made Why All The Armor such a human sounding album. While the production on Cracked Open sounds fantastic, at times it is too perfect. As a result, parts of it sound like songs occurring not in the everday world we all inhabit but, rather, the disconnected space of a recording studio.

That being said, I think the next album could bring together the best of Armor and Cracked Open. Zach could bring that youthful awe of the former album, then temper it with the clarity and maturity of the latter. Further, there could also be a great sound dynamic if the rawness of Armor and the professionalism of Cracked Open work together and correct each other. One artist who has been especially successful in doing this is Phil Elverum of Mount Eerie. This artist stands out in his ability to use professional-level production, while at the same time maintaining a very human, “real-time” sound. He uses microphone techniques that bring out all the cracks and imperfections of whichever room he is recording in. Elverum is also able to balance the youthfulness that has always made rock n’ roll great with the maturity that the genre has often lacked. Other artists who’ve done the above well include David Bazan, Damien Jurado, and Rosie Thomas.

Though it has its faults, Cracked Open is still an honest, interesting, and enjoyable album. Zach Vinson is one of the more promising songwriters I’ve heard in the past 5 years. Best of all, he’s an actual musician, not just some half-wit throwing out some shitty auto-tuned vocals over soulless powerchords. Rather, Zach excels at every instrument he plays, and when it comes to piano he just may be a prodigy. Now those are the makings of a singer/songwriter who is only going to get better.

Find out more at www.zachvinson.com

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