The Backward Path

The continuing output of Dan Melchior demonstrates that the English emigre's natural state of creation might simply be that of creation full-stop, that the act of composing and releasing new music is its own reward. But what's remarkable about an album like The Backward Path is how what could be "just" another Melchior release would be scores of other musicians' career highlights. The combination of inventive, enjoyable instrumental fragments throughout, one or two acting as direct lead-ins to full songs, and those full vocal numbers themselves is a constant delight, something that one can get an immediate handle on and yet each fragment never quite follows the expected path of what the previous song might demonstrate. Part of the charm lies with Melchior's brilliantly accomplished lyrics, capturing states of mind and the everyday with accomplished ease. When he sings of "People screeching by in their obnoxious cars" on "Night Comes In," it's with the engagingly disaffected air of a band like Swell Maps, but on "I Have Known the Emptiness" — noting said state's "lack of jokes" — the sense of empathy is concrete. His observation of paths not taken on "The Old Future" and unfulfilled promises is another winner, noting at one point "No utopia/Just the bullet trains...and the Internet."