The Good Life gets better than before

By Joey Vergara

Published Sept. 14, 2007

In one of the most unexpected moves in Saddle Creek Records' history, The Good Life/Cursive mastermind Tim Kasher up and left Nebraska for Los Angeles a couple of years ago.

If the myth surrounding the connection between a musician's music and geography were actually true, Kasher fans were screwed.

Fortunately, it's not entirely so, and Kasher's move doesn't seem to have affected his songwriting on Help Wanted Nights, the latest Good Life album. Heartbroken and emotionally crippled characters continue to flitter in and out of his lyrical stories, and the cynical alt-folk-tinged Americana that has defined The Good Life's sound is even more stripped down and heart wrenching than before.

Help Wanted Nights was loosely written as an accompaniment to a screenplay Kasher penned, which shares the same name of the album, and is cinematic as can be. The scenes in the songs have an impressionistic feel as each details a moment in the narrator's time in a small town, and the emotions are absolutely palpable.

The songs on Help Wanted Nights are short and anything but sweet. "Some Tragedy" chronicles two lonely strangers' night of drinking, their sexual adventures and the narrator's eventual dependence to the other in the morning.

Unlike many of his past records, Kasher generally keeps his voice in check on Help Wanted Nights. There are the occasional yelps and quivers that made him such a recognizable voice in the genre, but with this newfound reserve comes a more tightly wound record. "Heartbroke" best plays on these expectations. The constant clock-like ticking of Roger Lewis' drums and Stefanie Drootin's bubbly bass line pushes the energy until it has nowhere to go, but it never actually gets there.

Unlike 2004's spectacular Album of the Year, when melodies sounded a little too familiar to one another, Help Wanted Nights is original inside and out. From the lonely acoustic guitar and quirky piano of opener "On the Picket Fence" to the spontaneous mid-song orchestral surge on "Some Tragedy" to the fundamental austerity and pure melancholy found throughout "So Let Go," this album plays out organically and honestly.

Help Wanted Nights' closer, "Rest Your Head," is one of the band's most adventurous songs and the one song on the album that looses all restraints. Influences and genres — alt-country, rock and pop — make appearances, and Kasher finally breaks his vocal rhythms once the song picks up. Ryan Fox turns up the volume on the electric guitars, which have been hushed by acoustic ruminations, and an organ solo that belongs on an Elvis Costello record. It's not the most well constructed jamboree, especially with its extended fadeout, but it's still a great way to close out the album.

With every grief-filled step, Kasher and company are getting closer to writing that elusive album of the year.