The cover is kind of surreal. A white-haired man and a middle-aged woman wave at each other. Each of them has almost crossed a small bridge made of wooden boards. They are about three meters apart. The two bridges on which they stand span two small creeks merging into one slightly bigger creek flowing slowly into the coniferous forest. A mountain of which the top is cut off by the photo looms behind. Why do the man and the woman raise their arms to say hello if they could talk to each other? A philosophical message concerning the futility of verbal communication seems to lie behind the image.

Pinback are the two multi-instrumentalists Rob Crow from Heavy Vegetable and Zach Smith from Three Mile Pilot. On three tracks Rob Zinser who is also from Three Mile Pilot plays the drums. Their hometown is San Diego but it wouldn't be correct to say that their music is sunny. The mood is closer to Mark Kozelek's Red House Painters without being as desperate and forlorn.

As I am not able to put this music into adequate words I can only use all the stereotypes and clichés I know here. Pinback have a distinct sound dominated by guitar, bass, keyboards, drum machine and the low-key voices of Crow and Smith. Usually one of them starts to sing and the other one joins in later singing his own lyrics. Each song has two sets of lyrics which fuse in beautiful harmonies. The tunes are airy and light but unforgettable. Time does not exist in this microcosmos. Everything flows smoothly and slowly. This music feels mellow and ripe. Like two sages singing about the essence of life. There is also a wistful component which doesn't come over as depressive at all. The unpretetentiousness and unobtrusiveness make this album so enchanting.

The drum machine fits perfectly into the songs especially in the magnificent Hurley. It doesn't matter that it is a machine. These songs are not really about rhythm. They are more about atmosphere created by the harmonies and the melody line which is often played by the bass.

Shallow or not isn't the question here. It is more can you resist beauty? Dan Perry said on an ILM thread that this is how he thought Coldplay sounded. Not the worst description. In any case this is how they should sound if they want to get my attention. How to move the listener without falling into the worst mannerism in male singing which is called falsetto. The only parallel to Coldplay is that the band name Pinback is a juxtaposition of two seemingly unrelated words. That is about the only thing I would reproach them.

A couple of songs: For the opener Tripoli please read the other short reviews below. Chaos Engine is a soft keyboard dominated lullaby with nicely accelerating programmed drums. The following track Shag is a change, a little rougher, more like Pavement. The whispered voices sing lyrics strongly contrasting to the still rather calm nature of the song:

I discovered Pinback via the ILM listening chambers which unfortunately don't exist anymore. The idea was to post an mp3 without naming the artist or song and the others would discuss on it without mentioning names if they knew them. A very good way to find about music you usually never listen to or don't know about. The song in the ILM listening chamber 9 was Tripoli, the album opener. Three views on this song which condensate Pinback's music much better than anything I could ever write about them:

Kim in the ILM listening chamber thread:

Tom Ewing on NYLPM (March, 27th, 2000):

Pitchfork's Andrew Goldman in his review of the US release of the album:

The now defunct westernhomes with a more critical approach concerning the album:

The AMG:

Customer review at Amazon:

If you arrived to the end of this I can offer you a link to mp3s of 16 songs (#15 Victorious D is a broken link) Pinback performed live in San Diego on March, 23rd, 2002. Six of the twelve songs on This Is a Pinback CD are assembled there. Unfortunately three of my favourites (Crutch, Lyon and Byzantine) are missing. Other mp3 links: Versailles (pop-up alert), Loro and Chaos Engine.

And here is the overview of the series 40 years, 40 albums of which part IV was this post.

By the way the poll for 1972 has been closed. The winner was Nick Drake's Pink Moon which has been my favourite of that year for most of my life.