FEATURE:
Second Spin
She & Him - Volume 3
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PERHAPS a new name…
on this blog, She & Him is a collaboration between M. Ward and actor Zooey Deschanel. They have released a series of albums (the latest, Christmas Party, came out in 2016). One of my favourite albums of theirs, Volume 3, was released in 2013. It contains three cover songs and eleven tracks written by Deschanel. The chemistry between Deschanel and Ward is terrific. I love Deschanel as a songwriter and singer. Volume 3 got a lot of positive reviews, though there were a few that were more mixed. I am going to bring in a couple of contrasting reviews. I think that it is an album full of joyfulness, nostalgia, breeziness and terrific simplicity. Songs like Never Wanted Your Love are instantly memorable and likeable. One does not hear too many songs from She & Him on the radio. I do wonder if we will get another studio album from the duo. Maybe not their most celebrated album, Volume 3 has a lot to recommend and love. I do not feel there is a weak song on the album. In a more mixed review, this is what Sputnikmusic had to say:
“It’s hard to tell whether She & Him have moved past the point of novelty or remain tarnished by it. On the one hand, the group’s collection of records has had nary a “bad” song on it. Forgettable, at times? Yes. Uninspiring, at others? Almost certainly, but throughout Volume One and Volume Two and now Volume Three the pair have maintained a reliable pop professionalism that has occasionally created sparks of black-and-white brilliance, an unerring portrait of a time when “I could’ve been your girl / you could’ve been my four-leaf clover,” was all that was needed for one starry-eyed girl to tell the heartbreaker in his varsity jacket.
Few artists have recreated (and, arguably, mastered) a specific sound as lovingly as She & Him. The playful pop instincts of the Beach Boys rub shoulders with the wistfulness of ‘60s girl groups; doo-wop meshes imperceptibly with Brill Building melodies and hints of Nancy Sinatra sass; sweeping Phil Spector symphonics unfurl like a velvety blanket next to carefree fingerpicking and aw-shucks guitar pop. At their best, She & Him transport you to somewhere else, where Zooey Deschanel isn’t a star and M. Ward is just the man behind the curtain, another in a long line of faceless studio hired hands. It’s a place where the magic is in the simplicity of the songs and the everyday romance they conjure, effortlessly and innocently. But, shit – a Christmas album? And now Volume Three, a record so tightly and painstakingly circumscribed by its period sounds and M. Ward’s polite production that it loses any mild sense of personality She & Him have managed to acquire in the past few years, just at a time when Deschanel should be staking her own artistic identity loudly and firmly.
Here, M. Ward indeed becomes that man behind the curtain, his signature blues touch only a faint whisper among the carefully manicured jazz inflections and retro indie pop tailor-made for a summer Sunday – preferably spent down at the local soda fountain. When things are spiced up, as on the faux-disco of “Together” or on the rumbling cover of Blondie’s “Sunday Girl,” it barely registers a notch above the rest of Volume Three’s flawlessly produced, entirely inoffensive sounds, lest Ward disturb the neighbors. Previous records reveled in these same sounds, true, yet they did it with some vigor, a certain punchiness and spice that kept them bouncing around in your head far longer than they rightfully should have.
Volume Three prefers to keep the focus on Deschanel, and while the melodies remain, they too often seem like just another part of the tapestry, not the selling point. Yet where Volume Three might have been picked up accordingly by a more prominent performance by Deschanel, the singer remains just as suppressed by the strict adherence to this genre exercise as Ward. Deschanel has never had trouble sounding wounded, but her voice here rarely jumps out at you – she prefers to just play the role rather than live it. Even when she’s obviously having fun, as she does on the whimsical “Sunday Girl” or the quintessential torch song (“Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me”), it inevitably feels rote, a meticulous tastefulness that is pretty and nostalgic, yet largely uninteresting.
It’s unclear whether this is a result of Ward’s unusually subdued production or Deschanel’s own limitations as a songwriter, but this is where She & Him’s self-imposed restraints tend to sabotage their artistic growth. Deschanel writes fine pop songs, but at this point, the tired ‘50s tropes and Grease-styled romantic calamities unfairly handicap her palette and diminish her talents. As a result, Volume Three can’t flourish under the force of her considerable personality or Ward’s craftsmanship, because the latter has been deadened and the former is unwilling to break the illusion. Until one or the other makes a change, it seems doubtful that She & Him will ever become more than a particularly well-credentialed homage”.
I do feel that Volume 3 is a very strong album that warrants more airplay. More people should know about it. AllMusic were a lot more positive when they sat down with the album:
“Always looking backward to the sunny sounds of the '60s, She & Him often feel like a band out of time, a pair of pop dreamers born too late to be a part of the musical scene they've painstakingly crafted a pastiche of with their third album, Volume 3. Like the previous two volumes, the album finds collaborators Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward diving headfirst into the sunny, lovestruck sounds of Brill Building pop with a splash of country twang for good measure. While this means the album doesn't do a lot to distinguish itself from the pair's early efforts, it certainly doesn't diminish its effortlessly enjoyable sound. In a way, this kind of anonymity seems like a part of the bands M.O. Sure, both of the players here are famous in their own right, but rather than slap their names on the album, they gave the project a perfectly pleasant, albeit generic name. And rather than giving the albums a cute title, they're given the archival title of "Volume." All this speaks to a desire to simply let the music exist on its own, classically pop, terms, allowing listeners to get swept up in a song like "I Could've Been Your Girl" not because it has that lady from the movies in it, but because it's the kind of breezy, melancholy pop that's really easy to fall in love with. Three albums (plus a Christmas record) in, you're either on board with what She & Him are doing or you aren't, and if you're stone-hearted enough to not be into the band by now, Volume 3 isn't likely to sway you. However, for those of you already caught in the band's spider web of eternal summer, this album delivers the goods”.
If you have not heard of She & Him or are not certain whether you will like them, I can recommend an album like Volume 3. An incredibly satisfying and complete album that will have you dipping back in long after you have first spun it, go and check of the 2013-released album from…
THE amazing M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel.