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Missiles

by

The Dears

 
Missiles
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Avg: 4.5 (16 ratings)

Montreal-based indie rockers continue to find beauty in despair

  • We Say...

    Review by James McNair

    As existing Dears fans know, this Montreal-based act has long been adept at making the heart of darkness sound beautiful. "A lot of our music involves me exorcising shit," group linchpin Murray Lightburn told this writer in 2005, "and I have a lot of shit to exorcise." Three years on Lightburn sounds no less vulnerable on Missiles, an album that ends with the sound of gunshots and includes a song called "Meltdown In A Major." You worry for Lightburn's welfare, but his grandiose, meticulously wrought arrangements and classy baritone vocals have resulted in one of the most openly emotional indie albums of 2008.

    These days keyboardist Natalia Yanchak — also Lightburn's wife — is the only other 'official' Dear. Now four albums into a career that began in 1995, this core duo has retained its indie guitar band sound, occasionally expanding to include saxophone, piano, strings — even a children's choir on epic, Gospel-infused closer, "Saviour."

    Here and there, one can still hear why Lightburn was once dubbed 'The Black Morrissey,' but his numerous British indie influences are less dominant than on previous records. Thus, while "Lights Off" begins in jagged, 'Thom Yorke leading Radiohead with an acoustic guitar' territory, it eventually grows to incorporate choral motifs and a parlando section that has more in common with Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On." The stand out track is "Dream Job," a spare, perfectly weighted shuffle wherein Lightburn sings of "rebels taking over without a clue."

    Which demons, precisely, Murray Lightburn is grappling with on Missiles it's difficult to say, but in its loosest, most soulful moments, the album comes on like a fraught prayer or a wonderfully creative cry for help. You have to admire the man's ambition and commitment, but let's hope he finds some joy in life soon.

  • They Say...

    Review by James Christopher Monger, All Music Guide

    2006's Gang of Losers found Montreal-based indie rock darlings the Dears stripping back some of the orchestral flourishes that peppered their acclaimed 2004 release No Cities Left, a move that did little to reduce the band's penchant for effective drama. Four years later, founding members Murray Lightburn and Natalia Yanchak decided to go it alone on Missiles, their first for the Dangerbird label. Recorded in a short period of time with numerous session players, Missiles is as rough and disjointed as it is arranged and majestic, balancing the apocalyptic artistry of No Cities Left with the emotional directness of Gang of Losers. That said, every Dears album requires multiple spins, but Missiles may warrant the most. With the average track clocking in at around five to six minutes, it feels exploratory in more ways than one. Beginning with an extended, saxophone-led intro and ending in a 12-minute, midtempo epic, Missiles has more in common with TV on the Radio and OK Computer-era Radiohead -- "Berlin Heart" is a dead ringer [musically] for "No Surprises") -- than it does the Smiths or Echo & the Bunnymen, two groups that have shadowed the band in the past, and while the rewards are there ("Money Babies," "Lights Off," and "Crisis 1&2" are three of the most engaging cuts the pair has ever written), the hooks are few and far between, resulting in the kind of overly personal transitory album that can either lay the seeds for a full-blown masterpiece, or render the garden infertile.

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