eMusic Review
There's a whole lot of hallway between Elliott Smith and Simon and Garfunkel, and, on his 2006 breakthrough album, Rocky Votolato paces every inch of it. “This is the kind of comedy where no one's laughing, cause it's hard to,” he sighs at the start of one alone-at-the-party indie-folk opus. “I'm a punchline who's punch-drunk with my fist in a broken mirror.” Like everything on Makers, “Portland is Leaving” has our humble narrator stumbling marvelously from anger to self-loathing to remarkable moments of clarity. “Love is the only answer; everything else is just a trainwreck,” he declares mid-song, only to amend it a minute later: “When love's a trainwreck you're a mistake.” Ouch. Guess we're back to anger, then. Know what? Even when Votolato's at his most bitter and petty — “You're as pretty as you are cruel” he tells somebody you hope he'll never hear from again — that breathy bourbon voice makes it all go down smooth. And sometimes Makers' distinctive brand of acoustic simplicity and swooning melody approaches its own version of pop perfection, as on the blissful “White Daisy Passing” and the insane “Tin Foil Hats.”
