Detroit’s Turn To Crime have released an album called Can’t Love, which reminds me of an album also released this year called Love. I’ll spare you artistic comparisons to Amen Dunes, but I find it interesting that in 2014 there are two albums still trying to expound the meaning behind this feeling called love. As for Can’t Love, the album ends and begins with cool detachment, but not before begging to be let in and begging you to come in.
One of the earlier tracks, “Sunday’s Cool,” has Derek Stanton singing “let me in, let me in” with washed out guitar and drums backing him. He shows much more of a lyrical and vocal effort compared to “Can’t Love,” a sort of “Who Loves the Sun?” for millenials. Which brings me to the point that this might be one of the more interesting releases this year simply because of Turn To Crime’s refusal to stick to one blueprint. The trio calls their sound “shoegaze/ambient/avant-garde,” which is pretty much accurate. The ambiance shines mostly on “Pine Box,” its title bringing to mind the poorest, most pathetic kind of funereal encasements. Perhaps, though, “Pine Box” is an ode to Stanton’s time in Brooklyn with Awesome Color. The lyrics comparing an unnamed big city to a casket might support this. Whatever the case, the atmospherics created by the percussion remind me of the sound of setting off a rescue flare. Simply, “Pine Box” is the best “hail mary” on an album full of them.
At seven tracks and just under 35 minutes, Can’t Love is one of the shorter album statements of the year — of albums that actually feel fully fleshed and conceptual. But, as Turn To Crime’s introduction, it works cohesively. None of the songs stand out in a manner that doesn’t seem to flow with the rest of Can’t Love, though “Nightmares” gets close. Album closer “I Can’t Not Love,” with its cheeky title referring to the earlier song “Can’t Love” and the album title itself, doesn’t really provide us any lyrical clues about why Turn To Crime started the record not believing in (or wanting) love, and somewhere along the way changed their mind about L-O-V-E. Just like artists past, they know love is a many splendored thing, fickle thing, a battlefield etc. On Can’t Love, Turn To Crime are trying to figure it out, and provide us with a soundtrack to listen to when we’re trying to figure it out ourselves.
Review by Alex Martinez. She is human and needs to be loved. Follow her on Twitter @xxalexm.
