*** Silver Jews

THE NATURAL BRIDGE

(Drag City)

"All houses dream in blueprints." "Most wars end in the fall." "Life should mean a lot less than this." Welcome back to the abstract perception of the Silver Jews' David Berman. If the sole purpose of art is to serve as a funhouse mirror on life, refracting our experiences until we perceive them anew, then Berman's Silver Jews succeed. Jokes as wise-ass anthems, spiteful inversions of Sam Cooke lyrics, a reminder that the world doesn't revolve around human labors -- it's all quite smart, but by now Berman has banged his head on the wall of indie rock enough to recognize its irony as an aesthetic dead end. This Jew's saving grace is to find a higher calling. He doesn't just want to point the mirror at us; he wants to point us (or at least himself) in the right direction.

His own stylistic evolution suggests this path. Aided by the surviving founders of New Radiant Storm King, Berman has moved from sprawling noise rambles to subtle, near-folk counterpoints; from throwaway low-fi experiments to controlled, sedate achievements; from a curiosity about anomalies to a desire for unity. Bridging these gaps with confidence, the Silver Jews come up with their most fully realized disc.

-- Dan Booth