Julie Doiron
Will Stil Love Me?
The Wooden Stars
Jagjaguwar
Borrowing the pensive lo-fi inflection that made her former band one of the best damn indie bands of the mid-1990s (Love Tara vies with Slanted and Enchanted, I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One and Exile On Guyville for top honors on this indie geek’s top-ten list), The Wooden Stars and Will You Still Love Me?, both recorded between 1998 and 1999 and recently re-released, pick up where Eric’s Trip left off several years back. Julie Doiron’s plangent vocals are mellifluous and wistful, at times intimating an aching vulnerability, yet never fragile. The syncopated phrasing of certain words and beats gives particular emphasis to Doiron’s lyrics which are simple and palpable, stripping away the pretentiousness that has caused indie rock to become such an anathema: “Your smile is a sweetener, it really makes my day/And you get sweeter and sweeter/In every possible way/Then you turn away/And I wonder was it something I said/And what can I do to make this change.” At times Doiron and her backing band sound strikingly like Ida (“Sweeter” and “Will You Still Love Me in December?”), while at other moments (“Dance Music”) the listener is reminded of quintessential indie rockers Tsunami. It is as if each album provides a delightful portal of sorts to the halcyon days of late-1993/early-1994, when indie music witnessed it apogee.
Jagjaguwar Records: http://www.jagjaguwar.com
