DeVotchKa: A Mad And Faithful Telling

A

trend has formed in indie-rock lately: albums that start with an epic song that

builds slowly and dramatically to a nearly orchestral crescendo. The intent, it

seems, is to tell the listener, "Hey, this is some epic, dramatic shit we've

got up in here!" Few discs actually keep that promise, which makes it all the

more forehead-slapping that DeVotchKa hits the ground running, kicking,

yelping, and dancing with "Basso Profundo," the first track on its new A Mad

And Faithful Telling.

Of course, DeVotchKa has never been strictly an indie-rock act. Fluttering

around the genre's fringes—as well as the outer limits of everything from

mariachi to gypsy folk—the band has bent its instrumental eclecticism

into pulsing, swaying songs that unfold like wildflowers. "Along The Way"

evokes the quirk and lushness of latter-day Talking Heads far more elegantly

than middleweights like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and frontman Nick Urata has

never gargled so much tequila as he does on the simmering "Undone." A recent

boost in confidence and fame following DeVotchKa's soundtrack to Little Miss

Sunshine has

served Telling well:

Urata's slurred warble leaps into soaring vibrato, and the group's eerie throb

of violin, accordion, and sousaphone has never felt so cinematic. It's an epic

sound, for sure, but one whose magnificence doesn't need a megaphone in front

of it.