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Over the Rhine Deliver Double Dose of Brilliance: Fans Worry that Their Favorite Musical Secret is About to Get Discovered

Clearly, they are trying harder. And, yes, they’re doing better, too. Turning the spotlight fully on Karin’s performance as a stellar vocalist and an intense, intuitive interpreter of Linford Detweiler’s poetic lyrics, Over the Rhine have burned what many will declare their brightest hour, and this reviewer would be hard-pressed to argue.

While somewhat different in character, the two records fuse into an impressive tome of short stories about faith fallen on hard times, relationships breaking up, and a nation losing its grip on its ideals and innocence. Call it a heart attack in the heartland—outcries for redemption, rejuvenation, and guidance.

Sonically, Ohio finds Linford and Karin adding colors to their palette, expanding on the folk-rock foundation of their strongest album—Good Dog, Bad Dog. There's a bit of the power-pop polish of Films for Radio, but primarily the duo and their everchanging body of supporting players dig deeper into the enchanting organic sound the fans have come to love. Producer/engineer Paul Mahern, a mixing-board veteran of recordings by Neil Young, Willie Nelson, Iggy Pop, and others, captures a bright and polished sound, even though there are no samples, loops, or special effects anywhere on the whole project. What makes the material sound so new and fresh is the surprising dose of country in the mix, and the new interest in storytelling rather than confessional catharsis. It's likely to provoke Emmylou Harris to revise her list of "Songs I Must Cover."

Of course, the question is: How did they convince their label, Virgin/Backporch, to let them release a double-album when they remain, mysteriously, such a low-profile wonder?

Double albums happen for supergroups after the release of the Album that Made them Big. I suspect that the folks at Virgin, being in on the secret of the band's abilities, just couldn’t resist the idea of two full discs of new material, even if only for their own indulgence. Who knows? Whatever the reason, it’s good news for Rhine-landers. Most of the 21 new songs can stand with the best work the band has ever done.

Most of them. This listener prefers to think of Ohio as One Perfect Album and then a second disc that could be called Encores and Great New Ideas. Disc One flows beautifully, taking you to exhilarating heights, then down into the bluest blues and painful craters of heartbreak. Disc Two keeps one foot planted in the band's essential sound and style, but sets the other foot in unexpected territories. It feels to this listener that two tracks toe the line of “b-side” material. Fans will argue about “the song that could have been cut.” But it is almost inappropriate to quibble about this in view of how generously the band has delivered this time around.

Here is a journey through Disc One, to scratch the surface of the project's riches, and then a few thoughts on Disc Two as well. (Wouldn't want to spoil too many surprises....)

And of course, these interpretations are all the opinion of just one listener. To quote some of the band's own lyrics:

I am truly skeptical of all that I have said...
 

DISC ONE

In “B.P.D.”, a knockout opening  number, Karin’s chords provide persistent piano pulse. You start itching for the guitars, and they come, finally, but Karin's vocals are what carries the song into the stratosphere. It's a revelation, like you’ve never heard her before. "I'm waiting for the end," she sings, "Waiting to begin again." And you half-expect to hear some sort of explosive transformation right at the microphone as the song builds in intensity. (In concert, it does explode—don’t miss the next OtR tour, because they take these songs to higher heights, carry them greater distances.) Karin seems to be singing a reproval to someone whose foolishness she cannot prevent, clean up, or help. But the more she sings, the more she seems to include herself in the reproval, until she concludes, “Only God can save us now.”

The song burns with a kind of energy that gives you high expectations for the rest of the album. And those expectations are met over and over again.

“What I Remember Most” is a soulful number. It aches with a lover's suspicion that a relationship may all be coming to a close. The singer, while devastated by her own intuitions of disintegration, sounds confrontational, trying to bring on the inevitable catastrophe so at last she can know the truth and be set free from this period of uncertainty.

    The saddest songs are the happiest
    The hardest truths are the easiest
    Put us both to the test
    And tell me if you still need me
    And I will swallow these words
    And see if I can still believe

The brilliance of this album’s lyrics lie in the way each song of relationship, with its particularity and storytelling, still leans toward addressing larger issues—the breakdown of innocent faith, the divorce of a nation and its ideals. Sometimes, the lyrics do more than lean that way. Karin sings:

    This American dream may be poisonous
    Violence is contagious
    Crowded or empty
    I walk these city streets alone.

Since the album’s angst seems capable of capsizing it at this point, the band fortunately lets the sunshine in with “Show Me”—a clear choice for the first single. And while it is as shameless a pop number as they’ve ever recorded, the country styling and zippy guitar solo make it stick. And the lyrics are a country mile from your typical pop sentiments of infatuation. Karin sings about a time-tested love and the rewards of fidelity in the midst of the intimidating chaos. She lays out a simple appeal on a bed of la-las: “Can we make it last? Can we make it real? Come on and show me how it feels…”

Continuing in this vein of things we can affirm in our distress, “Jesus in New Orleans” is a tipsy little number of blissful blues, with enough of a sense of humor to juxtapose “Jesus” and “bloody Marys” in the same line. It’s almost like Linford is showing off how good a lyricist he’s become, spinning little webs of exquisite physical details that say so much about emotional truths. “She wore a dark and faded blazer / with a little of the lining hanging out…” Karin makes this character real, singing, “The road's been my redeemer." It is worth noting that, while this album finds the band reflecting with a heavy heart on the wounded state of this world, they are making even bolder assertions of responsibility and faith in the midst of it:

    But when I least expect it
    Here and there I see my savior's face
    He's still my favorite loser
    Falling for the entire human race
    Ain't it crazy
    What's revealed when you're not looking all that close
    Ain't it crazy
    How we put to death the ones we need the most...

“Ohio” is the album’s most intimate moment, taking the album’s spiritual themes to the specifics of a small-town breakdown. Karin sings alone at the piano, and this is where the album drops anchor. She’s turning pages of memories like browsing through a photo album, broken by the story of collapse, and yet relieved to leave it all behind. (Karin grew up in Barnesville, a small town in the Ohio Valley, while Linford grew up not far away in Hartville and Fairpoint.) Perhaps it is the personal nature of these stories that makes this record clearly the pinnacle of Karin's career as a vocalist. She has never sounded better or more inspired. I'm convinced God invented vowels so Karin could sing them long, slow, and drawn out.

“Suitcase” is another heartbreaker, all the more sour for its sweet musicality and the almost casual nature of Karin’s vocals.

    Whatcha doin' with a suitcase
    Tryin' to hit the ground with both feet runnin'
    Aren't you trippin' on your shoelace
    You're stealin' away on a sunny day
    Well aren't you ashamed at all
    Funny but I feel like I'm fallin'

The longtime concert favorite “Anything at All” finds its finest musical arrangement here. Tony Paoletta's visceral dobro notes curl around the edges of the verses. It also gives us another gospel-grounded affirmation: “Sooner or later, things will all come around for good / Sooner or later, I won't need anything…”

“Professional Daydreamer” gives new punch to the sentiment "Parting is such sweet sorrow." It's another song about the strong bonds of intimacy and the bloody agony of parting.

“Lifelong Fling” is as dreamy and sexy as anything they've recorded. It’s a ramble that echoes their concert favorite “My Love is a Fever”, in which Karin chews on the lyrics, stretching and twisting the words like they're made of salt water taffy. As she illustrates the joys of true love’s journey, she makes it as enchanting as a children’s picture book. Get a load of this:

    The moon blind-sided the sky again
    As we grabbed loose ends of the tide and then
    The slippery slide
    You know I can't say when
    I ever took a ride that could slap me this silly
    With roiling joy

Linford's keyboards mix with Paoletta's toe-curling pedal steel in an extended jam that only heightens the joy.

And then they lower the boom.

“Changes Come” is a difficult song for me to write about… perhaps I shouldn’t. For this fan, it rivals "Latter Days" as the most exquisite, painful, and glorious thing they’ve recorded. At their Cornerstone concert, Karin said that they wrote this song after watching the news while tanks rolled through Baghdad and Bethlehem. You'll believe it. And during this soulful lament, performed entirely by the two of them, she confesses some intimate fears in frank, but fitting, words.

The finale soars as she slowly shifts the refrain: “Changes come, turn my world around” into an echo of Psalm 40: “Jesus come, bring the whole thing down…” If you don’t need a period of silence after this song, you aren’t paying enough attention.

DISC TWO

Disc 2 continues the storytelling cycle of lives cracked open, of raw and painful need for solace and healing.

“Long Lost Brother” is the song quoted at the beginning of this review. "I thought that we'd be further along by now," she sings, a sentiment that rings true as we watch the news of pre-emptive war. It's another profound and plaintive cry for a second chance in the ruins of this world we have wrecked.

“She” is an achingly sad story of domestic abuse, in which Karin struggles to focus on the woman’s sad story and state of mind, but can’t help injecting her own feelings that she should put a gun to her husband’s head.

“Remind Us” returns Karin to the piano for a heavy-hearted anthem of wartime and mourning:

    Can't bear the news in the evening
    We're going to bed and we're going to war
    All of this for
    Anyone's guess
    If we forget anything
    Heaven forbid someone would remind us

    Sinners and saints, priests and kings
    Are we just using God for our own gain
    What's in a name
    Open your eyes...

Railing against complacency in times when action and clear thinking are crucial, “How Long Have You Been Stoned?” growls along a cantankerous rock and roll groove.

“Nobody Number One” rambles in the vein of “My Love is a Fever” in which she wrestles with the incurable problem of pain and hard questions: “You can’t put no band-aid on this cancer / Like a twenty dollar bill for a topless dancer / You need questions, forget about the answers…”

“Cruel and Pretty” turns a Chagall painting into song, as dreamy as a sultry summer evening, celebrating the power of art to draw us up out of our sufferings into “the backstreets of heaven.”

And yet, while the sincerity remains strong, the intensity of the early songs begins to slacken, slightening the album’s overall impact. “When You Say Love” is a zippy little number, but a keyboard bit that I find annoyingly simplistic accompanies the redundant refrain.

“Fool” is a soulful performance in which Karin croons for a holy fool... probably THE Holy Fool... to continue seeking her in spite of her meandering nature: “Fool, pursue me from heaven above or to hell below / Just don’t let go…”

“Hometown Boy” revisits their new country-flavored style with shimmering slide guitars, sharing more intuitions about the world “breaking down” and more sentiments about wanting to get out of town instead of slipping into complacency.

When the new version of the fan favorite “Bothered” finally arrives, it gives the record a much-needed return to the poetry and intensity of the first disc. The new slide guitar, punchy rhythms, and dreamy background harmonies are a nice new cast for the song. But it begs the question of why they felt it necessary to record it again. Perhaps they felt that the lyrics, which exhort us to put aside our fears and turn our attentions to faith, was a proper conclusion to a journey through sufferings, changes, and disintegration. I'm not complaining--it's beautiful.

Surely, though, the final track, “Idea #21 (Not Too Late)” stirs up enough intensity to bring closure, with its echoes of “How long?” It brings the car to a slow stop in the driveway of a church for a rousing bit of gospel. Who could ask for a better destination in view of all of these tales of sorrow and searching?

ALL IN ALL...

Ohio is evidence that Linford and Karin are in as prolific a period as any chapter of their career, undiscouraged by change-ups in the band makeup, ready to explore new expressions and sounds both old and new. Fans will certainly be pleased to have such a feast of fine work, but the question lingers—will Ohio’s plenitude blunt its impact on newcomers? Would an abridged, more focused edition make for a stronger, more cohesive release?

Time will tell. Surely the band struggled with those questions. But when it comes down to it, you would be hard pressed to cut this back to a ten- or even a fifteen-song collection. We can be grateful that Over the Rhine are in peak condition at 10 albums old, and show no sign of slowing down. They remain one of contemporary music’s deepest and strongest rivers, offering rest, refreshment, inspiration, and reflection... to those fortunate enough to find them.

Jeffrey Overstreet 7/28/2003
 
 

Louis Armstrong once said, "The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Things like old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night or something said long ago." In other words, good music should have the ability to reproduce experiences for us, to tell us old stories in new ways. If this is true, then Over the Rhine's latest endeavor is a decadent twenty-one-song tribute to what music is all about.

Ohio is immediately familiar, full of warm and comfortable spaces waiting to be occupied. This is not to say that Ohio is in any way a redundant addition to their discography, but rather that we finally have an Over the Rhine album in which all the individually successful elements of the last three or four releases find plenty of room to interact. For many fans, albums like Good Dog Bad Dog played their way into our personal histories, becoming the soundtrack to years of our lives. Films For Radio came along and let Over the Rhine prove its percussively seductive skill in the studio on the Back Porch. Ohio itself places a foot firmly in both worlds. With the subtle "post-nuclear" passion of tracks like "Seahorse" and the fluttering "art-pop" vibe of "Moth," Ohio unfolds across this year's musical landscape like a vintage breath of fresh air.

If one were to think of the ever-revolving lineup of musicians that have lent hand and heart to Over the Rhine over the years as a combination lock, then Ohio seems to open with the bracing click of the right alignment. Ever true to the diversity that makes albums like Good Dog Bad Dog and Films for Radio so eternally listenable, Ohio finds Over the Rhine in three of its major grooves: the art-pop, the contemplative, and the self-confidently soulful. 

"Show Me," one of the first few tracks, is a great example of that strange space between folk and art rock that Over the Rhine can occupy with such unparalleled joy. With its slide guitars rolling along beside Detweiler's organs behind Karin in full tilt, "Show Me" rivals "Go Down Easy" in pure passion. "Suitcase" finds us close to the same place, drifting rhythmically back and forth like a tired hammock in the breeze. Just as in the airy "Suitcase," somewhere in many of these tracks are stories that we are peeking over the shoulder of. We are listening in at the ends of private conversations or heartbreaks. It is a few of these stories that take us into the cool midwestern valleys of the album. 

And when we dip down from the well-traveled art-pop thoroughfares of both discs, we find tracks like the contemplative "Ohio" and "Changes Come," which may very well be Over the Rhine at its best. Ohio is the inside of story of someone who so identifies with a place that he or she can leaf through its geography with the rhythm of memory. Karin takes us quietly back through this history, letting it drape like a mist over Detweiler's lush piano landscape. In "Ohio" itself, Karin and Linford seem to lead us home to the trickling fountainhead of all things "Over the Rhine," a place that their live shows often end up at, but we rarely see on disc. This track and "Changes Come" remind me of Ella Fitzgerald's wry advice: "The only thing better than singing is more singing." And in "Changes Come" we get precisely that, unfolding waves of Berquist slipping up onto a fragile musical shore of Detweiler's intimate design. It is hard to quantify the experience of this track; I could compare it to the first time I heard Good Dog Bad Dog. But, quite frankly, "Changes Come" hit me much the same way life did that morning when I switched from a Three Stooges episode to the local news just a minute before the second plane disappeared into the World Trade Center. Its eschatological undertones are difficult to shake off.

By now, the circumstances surrounding the almost accidental birth of a two-disc set are well known. And while the second disc doesn't have the major release perfection of the first disc, it certainly has some solid tracks to take us down the homestretch of more than 90 minutes of music. Disc two has something in common with the recent Cutting Room Floor, it feels like an album put together by a band that is a fan of its own music. Bookended by undeniable classics, this disc covers a fairly broad territory and almost seems to be a playful experience of all the influences intimated at on the first disc. Gospel and blues lie down comfortably next to Over the Rhine's own catchy jazz vibes. 

"Long Lost Brother" is evidence enough for the blessed necessity of this second disc. It is a startling companion to the dirge sensitivity of "Changes Come," a heartwarming monument to the "second chance." "Nobody Number 1" is a welcome throwback to crowd pleasers like "The Body Is a Stairway Of Skin" or "My Love is a Fever." It is one in which Karin gets to cut loose in an ordered jazzy stumble right into an effortlessly smooth refrain. But of all the standout tracks on the second disc, "Cruel" and "Pretty" may be the most interesting ones in which we see a new sort of Over the Rhine. There is a gentle jauntiness in the way the guitars and piano interact behind Karin's voice that creates a mature and uplifting complex of music. This track seems to hint at a place Over the Rhine may be taking us more often in the future. And then, more towards the end, Ohio's version of the brilliant "Bothered" (originally recorded on Besides)is a thick harmonious treasure for those who haven't had the privilege of hearing this song at live shows so often over the years. 

It is often said that music is the space between the notes. Well, for Over the Rhine, Karin Berquist is that space. Ohio is yet another album in which her voice seeps through the cracks and fills any open spaces it can find to occupy. Under the sensitive ear of this album's producer, Paul Mahern, Over the Rhine has played itself into the difficult corner of coming up with something better next time, a seemingly untroubled situation in the past. One can only hope that the album will find the critical attention it deserves and score for Over the Rhine a broader audience. 

This review has already had a lot of jazz quotes, so it may be fitting to finish with one. John Coltrane once said, "Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I'll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels, and that's too bad." For an album as brilliantly personal as Ohio, I hope for Over the Rhine's sake that Coltrane wasn't right. 

M. Leary 8/25/2003

Film and Religion Editor of www.thematthewshouseproject.com.

Superlatives are left impotent as I attempt to describe Over the Rhine’s sixth album proper, tenth if we count various rare track compilations and a Christmas album. I found myself gasping throughout at the melodies, the poetry, the spiritual insight, and the reflections and echoes of my inner most grappling with how God interacts with this beautiful yet fatally tainted human race and we with God. Then of course, there is that voice. Karin Berquist has a voice that is seductive like no other, seducing your heart and your soul with a sound that is so otherworldly that you are not sure if your mortal ears can listen. Was it Julie Miller who stated that this was the voice that all of us would have in heaven; the women at least!

Musically, this is as satisfied a sound as anything they have released before. Where the production on their first Back Porch release Films For Radio was chasing Dido and Sinead O’Connor into a little too modern pop this is ambient in the most gorgeously organic and acoustic of ways. Linford Detweiler who is the other half of Over the Rhines core has released two instrumental piano albums and here for maybe the first time the piano drives the entire thing way forward in the mix and navigated sweetly by a lot of pedal steel. That piano and that voice are a match made in heaven a beautiful piece of heartache as “Latter Days” on Good Dog Bad Dog suggests; a chemistry that explodes gently in aural ecstasy. As Over the Rhine should now be everything else serves the two main protagonists. 

The songs? Well, What “I’ll Remember Most,” “Jesus In New Orleans,” “Lifelong Fling,” “Long Lost Brother,” and “Remind Us” are simply the best songs these guys have ever written. People will say that a double album is a little ambitious in the days when you can easily squeeze 75 minutes onto a single disc. Though you could probably pick out the thirteen tracks that would have made the single record cut, you would not have wanted to have missed the trippy “How Long Have You Been Stoned,” the Gram Parsons country rock of “Show Me” or the Gospel Choir of the hidden track Idea #21 for anything. In fact, a triple CD would have been justified. Bring it on! 

As writers, Linford and Karin have never been so up front about their faith. “Jesus In New Orleans probably typifies their approach. The last place that you expect to find Jesus is where he is and just maybe that is exactly where we should have been looking all along. There is drink and doubt and angels being wrestled and there is war and rumors of war and death; a whole lot of death. These guys were going through the pain of personal sorrow at the same time as America was in national mourning around September 2001. It seems that it has brought their writing face to face with mortality but also the life they have lived, are living and that in itself directs them to the destinations they need to set out for while they understand that eventually it will be home that they return to; in their case--Ohio.

In the earth of their native state, Over the Rhine have made their ordinary every day world extraordinary. They have found a severe mercy in the midst of their personal as well as humanity’s deepest darkness. They have delved deep to find hope in the tragedies our darkness create. They have found a place of joy in the midst of the certain-to-come-our-way tears. They have used all their wrestling to weave poetry and music into a tapestry of utterly astonishing beauty. Ohio, be proud. 

Steve Stockman 9/25/2003