Or, the Whale Or, the Whale

“Anything but country” is the one phrase that should be banned from all Facebook pages (along with any joke about how a beer is better than a woman; yes, we’ve heard them all). It’s both an indication of closed-mindedness and a buffer against talented independent songwriters like those in San Francisco’s Or, the Whale, fronted by lead vocalist and guitarist Alex Robins. The lyrics of this group's heavy, literary brand of country tend to be more oblique and the narratives more fragmented than those of straight C & W. But there’s no doubt where Or, the Whale stands. Aside from the electric guitar feedback and stoner bass lines mixed in with the banjo rolls, the band’s self-titled new album, the second of its career, is barely more of an “alternative” than any Alison Krauss recording. And that’s a good thing; the best thing for country music right now, as it turns out, might be total commitment to its themes, and the musicians in Or, the Whale don't flirt with country; they put a ring on its finger.

Vocal polyphony, contributed by Robins, Lindsay Garfield, and at least two other band members, is this ensemble’s fingerprint. Hardly a line is sung without one or more countermelodies swimming porpoise-like alongside it. On Black Rabbit, the hardest rocking track on the album, the vocals breach from an ocean of electric guitars, sending out waves to knock over the listener’s boat. At one point, the sound of dissonant guitars, for a moment, harpoons the song's mellow tone and evokes, of all bands, Built to Spill, but Or, the Whale never looses focus.

The lyrics are obsessed with – even in awe of – death. The singers call it “something to behold” on Rusty Gold, and the album even features a death row ballad in the form of A Terrible Pain (“When I’m low in the grave, only then will I behave”). Other songs’ words betray a city-dweller’s conception of what country music is supposed to be about. It’s hipster country, if you will – a kind of hillbilly music afflicted with a litany of modern neuroses. Agoraphobia, insomnia, death-obsession – if Woody Allen wrote a country song, it might sound something like Never Coming Out or Keep Me Up. Closing number No Death carries on in the album's morbid theme, but ends on a note of redemption: "Oh death, I feel it coming on, but I'm stronger than anybody knows. No death is gonna keep me on the floor. Gonna stand up and carry on some more."

Country-rock, as a genre, ought to be concerned with death, with the way it seems to be losing steam every year. Wilco, with every release, sounds more and more like The Eagles. And Jay Farrar? Well, there are few things that will do more damage to your badass credentials than teeming up with Ben Gibbard, even if it is for a Jack Kerouac tribute. One problem here is that, with all its talent, Or, the Whale has the potential to hit so much harder. For a band named after literature’s most famous leviathan, it has too few teeth and too much baleen, and Ahab could’ve taken this beast down in minutes. It’s a whale that feeds mostly on krill, and it will need some more aggression if it plans to go in for the kill.