Records: The Devlins' Waiting

By Meredith Gordon

If you thought the only worthwhile things to come out of Ireland were green beer, leprechauns, and dirty limericks, you're in for quite a surprise.

The Dublin-based band, the Devlins, has just released their second album on Universal Records, and unlike Noel and Liam Gallagher, who seem to be incapable of producing an album more interesting than their offstage antics, this pair of U.K. siblings has put out a 10-track gem. The Devlins' "Waiting" is an exquisitely precise, intricate arrangement of artful melody, driving beat, and emotive lyrics. It achieves a crisp, cool sound and a feeling that is at times unendurably painful, and at others strangely optimistic. "World Outside," the first track, starts off with an odd feedback effect and a few chords of classical piano that one might almost expect to find on an easy-listening station, and then falls into the deep, pounding-yet-not-overpowering bass and sultry, pleading vocals that carry the song to its climax. Complete with the cut-me-with-a-knife tension that hangs in the empty spaces between verses and catches occasional touches of the unconventional opening sounds, "World Outside" sets the tone for an album in which each track connects with the others, building on the ones that come before and contributing to those that follow.

It is the connections between people, the confusing and often difficult nature of human relationships, that drive the stories behind the songs on "Waiting." They are echoed in the elaborate connections between instrumentals and vocals, tune and rhythm, sound and pause. They are also recalled in the relationship between Devlin and Devlin, as one of the brothers responds to a comment made or a theme brought up by the other in a style that never becomes overly self-pitying or melodramatic.

In "Years Could Go By," when Colin Devlin (lead vocals/guitar) laments his lost love, sighing "and I feel no surprise when you tell me now you have to go away," the cello chorus seems to have heard his despondent crooning, calling back in knowing sympathy. In the title track, the painful silent pauses that follow lines like "waiting in the right shoes, waiting in a fast car" and "waiting in slow motion, coming through the turnstiles," force the listener into the same position as the song's protagonist: waiting, impatiently and hungrily, for the next line, next note. And in "Kill With Me Tonight," Peter Devlin's (bass/back-up vocals/guitar) minor key back-up vocals actualize the eerie and weighty tone at which the instrumental intro and cryptic lyrics barely hint.

The precision of the Devlins' "Waiting," rather than leaving the record stilted and contrived, sets up an atmosphere of geometric complexity and a sound that is distilled to its purest essence. The brothers had a bit of help with the polishing of the record from producer Pierre Marchand (producer of Sarah McLachlan and Blue Rodeo) and mixer Tom Lord-Alge (mixer of Black Grape, Toad the Wet Sprocket, and that British brother act, among others). "Waiting" is the barest essence of The Devlins' sound; everything unnecessary is stripped away and what is left is more than worth a listen.(Universal Records)

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