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No sense of direction on Back and Fourth

Pete Yorn’s latest doesn’t offer innovation or entertainment

Pete Yorn

Back and Fourth

Released on Jun 23, 2009

As far as singer-songwriters go, Yorn is a pretty respectable character. His first album, musicforthemorningafter garnered him critical acclaim and landed him on plenty of “Breakout Artist”-type lists, and since then, he’s released steady streams of material. However, he’s always seemed to be a one-note guy for me. He has the slightly melancholic aesthetic down pat, with a decent pop guitar riff thrown in for flavor every so often. Sadly enough, on Back and Fourth, he mostly ignores those riffs, and relies almost entirely on his vocals and lyrics to pull the album through.

Surprise! It doesn’t work. I contemplated starting this review with one of his insightful, stunning lyrics, such as “you kissed the best/you had enormous breasts” off of “Social Development Dance.” Pete, please. Your charm and superior communication of sentiment is just too much for me to deal with. Or, there’s the ever-lyrical “I know a man’s not supposed to act this way/but things they got too real/I couldn’t stay/now I know one day, we will both feel good” from “Don’t Wanna Cry.” You’ll both feel good one day? So, so deep.

I’m sorry, but if your instrumentation isn’t going to get much more creative than a guitar supplemented (at times) by a tiny brass section, then you need to step up your lyrical offering. I actually cringed while listening to some of the songs. Lyrics of this caliber might be acceptable from a 17-year-old kid who just broke up with his girlfriend, but he’s had commercial success. He had a song on House, for God’s sake! (It’s called “Lose Yourself,” and is far better than anything on this album. Check it out).

My distaste for the album stems from just that—he is known as a rather talented lyricist and musician. And, I like some of his other material. In fact, even though I completely doubted the project at first, his duet album with Scarlett Johansson—coming out on September 8—sounds like it’s going to be entertaining, if the first single “Relator” is any indication.

Finding something to praise on Back and Fourth proves to be fairly difficult. Perhaps its fitting title should be applauded? He certainly seems to be going back and forth between the artist he should be, and the guy who will probably be found on Lite FM in a matter of years. Oh, and then there’s the track “Shotgun.” Again, nothing to write home about, but it does offer some of the more intriguing instrumentation on the album, especially the lovely string part that comes during the chorus. Just do yourself a favor and don’t listen to the lyrics.

Posted by Alyssa Vincent on Jun 09, 2009 @ 6:00 am