In Stores Now: The Desert of Shallow Effects by Miles Kurosky

Illustration from Dudley Allen Sargent's Health, Strength and Power, 1904

A couple weeks ago, I realized that I'd missed a couple cool-sounding albums that came out in the spring by artists I feel some loyalty to - The Desert of Shallow Effects by ex-Beulah guy Miles Kuroskay and Ted Leo's new one, The Brutalist Bricks. I think I didn't run out and buy them when they came out because I had an inkling that I might find them underwhelming, but, while this turned out to be true, I'm finding I'm enjoying The Desert of Shallow Effects more and more as I listen to it.

In the five years since Beulah's much-documented implosion, Kurosky went through a rough patch where he couldn't play music because of a bad shoulder injury; he also had some other health problems, if I recall correctly. And he got married. I think these experiences color a great deal of the lyrical content of The Desert of Shallow Effects, which Kurosky has described as a set of stories. It is true that they are remarkably verbose compositions, very different from the sketchy refrains Beulah worked with. A lot of the content seems very personal and emotional as well, but I'm still deciding whether this kind of album plays to Kurosky's strengths.

The instrumentation on The Desert of Shallow Effects has not changed much from the Beulah days and features an orchestral pop grandiosity provided by a variety of musicians. The weak link in these songs, for me, is structural, though. The songs on the album lack good choruses and, while its true that a lot of dudes write great story-songs without choruses, I think that Kurosky's whimsical baroque pop style needs a chorus hook to work. Take a listen to "An Apple for an Apple" below and tell me if you can tell which section is the chorus. I think it's only repeated once and it doesn't make much of an impression.

Even though it's dense, wordy album without a lot of immediately accessible moments, The Desert of Shallow Effects is still an impressive work that I think I'll appreciate more as I listen to it over a couple months. For a lot of artists, I wouldn't hang in there with a "difficult" album that long, but I have a soft spot for Kurosky's singing voice and sense of melodicism. Which is more than I can say for The Brutalist Bricks, which I probably won't even bother writing about.

"An Apple for an Apple" by Miles Kurosky