Tram
Heavy Black Frame (Jetset)
by Aaron Lazenby
On their debut long-player, Heavy Black Frame, London-based Tram transcend the often-tired mope rock vocabulary to compose one of the most stirring and melancholy records of the year. Rather than create songs bogged down by plodding tempos and repetitive instrumentation, the boys of Tram assemble sad, delicate tunes that are both atmospheric and organic. Every track on the 10-song disc succeeds in painting a sad but picturesque musical landscape, but stays always grounded in the personal and intimate songcraft.
The lyrics of Heavy Black Frame are predictably introspective and desperate. “I said all there was to/It’s better left that way,” vocalist Paul Anderson sings on the album opening “Nothing Left to Say.” Anderson’s reserved delivery indeed sounds like there is much left unsaid by his honest and shaky voice. This feeling, coupled with extremely expressive musical arrangements, creates a beautiful tension in Tram’s songs. Emotions bubble unexpressed under the surface of the vocals, while the guitars and keyboards break through to articulate total love and loss, insecurity and resentment.
“Home” and “I’ve Been Here Once Before” employ a lovely slide guitar that is a dead-ringer for Mazzy Star’s Dave Roback, and creates the same kind of dreamy down-home sadness that his band accomplished so well. “Too Scared to Sleep” is an insanely simple piece of music – two notes of guitar and three chords strummed over a tambourine. But an oboe comes out of nowhere and a synth inflates the background, and the song suddenly sounds like a rising sun. The Angelo Baldamenti inflected instrumental “Like Clockwork,” painted from a palette of major and minor keys, is a warm and sad post-rock excursion.
The playing on Heavy Black Frame is top notch. Nick Avery’s fragile finger picking guitar meanders through every song, subtly changing the direction of the music by introducing new notes to his cascade-like riffing. Nick Avery’s drumming is as studied and precise a typewriter, and lingers on the cymbals to keep each song glistening with energy. The addition of Bill Lloyd’s piano and an uncredited harmonica keeps the whole package anchored in a somehow rootsy desert sadness that is both isolated and beautiful. The bottom line: Tram’s Heavy Black Frame is one gorgeous record.
(67 Vestry Street Suite 5C New York, NY 10013)
