Julie Doiron I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day

Julie Doiron has been around the musical block for a while now, both as a solo artist and as part of a band. Either despite this or because of it – which one, I’m not sure – her music almost always sounds like you’ve heard it before somewhere else. At least that’s the case with her latest solo album, I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day. As is the case with some talented artists who have had a decade or more to hone their craft, Doiron can, and does, habitually create stunningly catchy and memorable pop tunes. Making a stunningly memorable pop album, though, is something that takes more than just practice. And I Can Wonder falls a bit short of this marker.

There are two Doirons on this album, and both aren’t exactly revelations. One is the stripped-down, acoustic Doiron with some mind-numbingly idiotic lyrics (that is not cute anymore – it hasn’t been cute since Juno). The other Doiron is the muscular songwriter backed by a fully adept band. This is the Doiron that makes those stunning pop tunes I mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, she only shows up about half the time.

It’s frustrating how the momentum gained by a thoroughly excellent song like the second track, Spill Yer Lungs and the third, Lovers of the World, completely unravels with the subsequent selections. Tailor has more Kimya Dawsonisms in it than Dawson has knots in her hair. Lyrics like “If I were a snow plow/I could plow a path to you/If I were a snowflake/I would fall right next to you” are just perplexing in their inanity. Whether it sounds like Dawson or whether Dawson sounds like Doiron (the latter, after all, has had a more expansive career) doesn’t really matter. Either way, it sounds overdone.

There is a direct correlation between the instrumental elements on I Can Wonder and the effectiveness of the songs. The folky acoustic numbers, as the previous paragraph states, are mostly all clumsy duds, no matter how coy or clever they try to appear. However, the heavier songs carry some real weight, approaching Cat Power-levels of transcendence. Heavy Snow has Doiron cooing through a blizzard of feedback that follows her to Consolation Prize, a hoppity pop song that’s dragged through a sludge of electric guitars and strange sound effects. Both songs demonstrate how Doiron’s clean voice is better complimented by the fangs and claws of a rock band than by the frailness of an acoustic guitar. She’s used to bands, after all. Maybe it’s where she belongs.

I Can Wonder is not really a success musically, but it is worth recommending at least for the ideas that work. Doiron has a voice that goes great with a funky electric guitar. It’s soft and cooling – it’s too obviously a lo-fi-sounding voice to actually work as one. The key is in the contrasts, in the irony. Otherwise, these peaches will get moldy real fast.