'Sharp Teeth' opens with the closing of a door, and the arrival of a girl before the acoustic guitar begins the fast-growing and overwhelming evolution of 'The Dream Before The Ring That Woke Me'. Based on the repetitive mantra: “There is a Joy You Can't Contain/There is a Feeling You Can't Explain”, delivered in male/female harmonised rapture as the whole lot orchestrates it's way to bursting point before reaching it's sudden end, the rapidity of the build-up is enough to take away your breath, and make the listener prick up the ears.
DAVID KURSTEN DANIELS has something to say alright!
The distorted psychedelic brass overtones of 'Scripts' are breathtaking too; that band sound is stunning enough alone, but woven into this poetry it becomes something else entirely.
Daniels, with his voice at full straining pelt during the audacious 'American Pastime' bounces concepts off the ill fitting surroundings of society and the trappings off the baseball and killing fields in a simultaneous and brutally honest rant, the melody a strong and overflowing current sent spinning by the double thump of keys and bass guitar. Killer lines like:
“You throw too close when I was up to bat/
Or I'd be sitting down by right field, my glove off, collecting dandelions in my hat”
sit beside a grinding cello as from the outside looking in, a sideways snipe at the pouplar whine that “life ain't fair” bursts out suddenly, before the images of war are given the same treatment. Lyrically it's the antithesis of the Rolf Harris classic 'Two Little Boys', only with wider resonance and an underground agenda to document the voice of all who are failed by the great American tradition – those who it simply does not apply to, or who haven't a hope in hell of identifying with it, despite the clarity of what 'America' stands for (“Whoaa—ohh – We're not cut out for the major league” Daniels pines over the cello's insistent pulse).
Musically this is freefall or an explosion - insantaneous! Again it's all over too quickly, the song's bittersweet beauty overloaded with the addition of an acidic guitar riff that blows out every light and leaves you clutching at straws.
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The title track is a piano-solemn intro. in two parts, underpinned by the click of the electric guitar and a maze of folksy strings. Like much of this hugely impressive album, the arrival of the bass and percussion give everything an extra kick, as we are tested for suspended judgement, but only for a second or two. Both pieces are preludes to the tracks that follow, part II being a brief reprisal.
The ska-silly brass also tinges the chiming folk wanderings of 'Jesus and the Devil', which blurs the boundaries of Good and Evil in such an effortless manner that it beggars belief. By the end, he's muddied those opposites until they represent the dazed and confused workings of real life in any dysfunctional society. By highlighting the complexities that make up the the despair of those who the system fails, he achieves a kind of childlike simplicity made heavy by the weight of irony. It's brilliantly done.
Daniels is in possession of a languid vocal, utterly 'American' and focused on the cosmic. It's a folk/country hybrid – but that in itself is a rather arbitary way to describe what will first appeal to the discerning listener first and foremost as a collection of truly great songs.
The tempo is consistent with a half-stepping lazy-assed loser's lament, and one that absolutely oozes with downbeat intrigue. The songs evolve, but quickly, and are gone so suddenly that you have no option but to think. Elsewhere the current bursts forth like an insuppressible flooding of the emotions. From frenzied anger to frustration, this is all got down so beautifully that the addictive power of the music is quite literally overbearing. Superb!
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