The Lucksmiths - Warmer Corners

Warmer Corners also broadens the emotional base of its predecessor, 2003's excellent and underrated Naturaliste. That album allowed the regret that had simmered stoically since at least as early as 1999's Staring at the Sky to reach full boil. "How did they come to this?" vocalist/drummer Tali White wondered dolefully. The same sorrow clouds Warmer Corners, but beneath exultant arrangements propelled by guest Lucksmith Louis Richter's Rubber Soul guitar leads along with horns, strings, organ, and pedal steel. The happy-music-with-sad-lyrics shtick has been done often, but rarely so well since the Lucksmiths' namesakes. White's "Sunlight in a Jar" provides a shy respite of sheer joy.
Though most previous Lucksmiths songs loll charmingly within the Aussie countryside, 1997 throwaway "Wyoming" excepted, Warmer Corners acknowledges the band's extensive U.S. touring. Lead single "The Chapter in Your Life Entitled San Francisco" neatly juxtaposes both locales, with winter rolling out in Fog City as summer slowly passes Down Under. The song's soaring choruses and downcast gaze thrill me even more than when I first reviewed them. On the winningly meta "Fiction", White sings longingly of "a girl from Kansas City" in his usual rich, Morrissey-esque phrasing. Other songs take place unmistakably in Australia or bassist Mark Monnone's new home of Tasmania. The Lucksmiths never relinquish their distinctive identity, merely expand it.

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