Illustration by Virginia Sterrett from Arabian Nights, 1928
The Capstan Shafts, the home-recording project of prolific Vermont songwriter Dean Wells, continues to follow the progression of Guided By Voices (the band that inspired Wells to make music in the first place). After years of solo home recordings, Wells has made the jump into the studio with Revelation Skirts - the ironic things is who is playing the Ric Ocasek role for the Capstan Shafts' Do the Collapse. It's Matt LeMay, the frontman of the unfortunately-defunct spazz-pop band Get Him Eat Him, who not only produced but also played many of the instruments on Revelation Skirts. LeMay wrote famously scathing reviews of Guided By Voices' post-lo-fi records, including a 4.7/10 review of Do the Collapse in which he said, "Pollard used to write minute-long Beatles songs; now he's taken to penning three-minute Ramones tunes. Throughout the album, the added production value seems to hide rather than accentuate." Maybe LeMay sees this as his chance to correct the flaws he saw in GBV's "big break" moment.
As someone who has purchased the entire 350+ songs in the Capstan Shafts discography, Revelation Skirts is a hard album to hear with fresh ears. Not because the sound is the same - it's totally different, with LeMay beefing up Wells' wispy jangle-pop tunes, turning them into Mass Romantic-style arena-ready power-pop. The issue is in the familiarity of the material - the songs of Revelation Skirts are almost entirely "stitched" together from older Capstan Shafts material. It's a smart idea, and Wells does a great job of pulling pieces from his earliest EPs (going all the way back to 2004's The Great Reset Button of Life) and his more recent home recordings like 2007's A Brace for Hephaestus, while avoiding obvious choices from his better-known LPs.
These new stitched-together songs are ideal for new listeners, but they can be jarring for someone who (for instance) immediately recognizes the opening track, "Fairweather Triumphalist" as a Frankenstein-hybrid of old favorites "Drags of Grind" and "The Ice Caps of Mars Are Just Copying Ours". The production choices are smart overall, if the sound is a little in-your-face, reminiscent of the sharp new-wave edges on the Get Him Eat Him records. A couple of the songs get a full "GHEH" makeover - it works on "Cruel Streak Andes", but "Let Your Head Get Wrong" strays a little too far from the Capstan Shafts sound for my taste.
Elsewhere on Revelation Skirts, you get some REM acoustic jangle ("From Revelation Skirts"), New Pornographers power-pop ("Successfully Into You") and plenty of GBV influence ("Versus the Sad Cold Eventually" and "Heart Your Eat Out"). The second half of the record has a particularly great string of songs anchored by the perfect singles "Quiet Wars" and "Your Wasted Isa Talent Here", as well as a melancholy mini-epic called "Versus the World Hater". This may be one of the best records I've heard this year, but I could give a lot to hear a Capstan Shafts record in this style composed of all new hooks. I envy the music fans who will be able to hear Revelation Skirts without any familiarity with the material - I imagine it would be a condensed version of the six-month ecstasy I experienced when I was accumulating the Capstan Shafts records. The constant barrage of hooks, the nimble wordplay, and Wells' creaky-but-elastic faux-Brit singing are everything a fan of indie rock could ask for.
EDITOR'S NOTE: My glowing praise for this record is in no way related to the fact that the front cover of Revelation Skirts is (coincidentally?) an image I used on this site for a Young Fresh Fellows review last year.
"Your Wasted Is a Talent Here" by the Capstan Shafts
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