Like ill lit, it’s a combination of folk guitar and drum machine rhythm. Like father Neil’s Crowded House, it’s a Beatlesque picture of harmonies on what we’d now call pop rock. Like an indie singer/songwriter, it tries to shirk off any shackles that might shake it down to be less than it is. Like subdued samples, drum fills come in like ghostly Who moments.
Liam Finn’s “Energy Spent” from I’ll Be Lightning gives a collage snapshot view of all the elements that come to shape a full picture of the new art that Finn frames up and displays. He’s certainly a part of the non-movement movement of other reclusive sounding artists who draw up experimental forays into pop rock—Bon Iver, Cass McCombs, James Yorkston, and Elliot Smith.
“Energy Spent” is also tremendous for its softly courageous encouragingly hesitant, subdued victorious, heels-kicked up in a sleepy dream approach to a challenge in life. Finn sings on the chorus, “I’m not broken/Just a little energy spent/And it’s a long way from here.” The song keeps you moving forward on that light guitar riff, pulsing rhythm, and a hopeful turn. It’s like hearing the hope from behind the faded walls of an abandoned seaside house, the music barely audible behind the old wallpaper and plaster, but soon you realize the rhythm’s coming through the cracks like a blinding light to erase the gloomy, dusty, old stories of failure.
Liam Finn
Yep Roc Records
Liberation Music
