Clem Snide: Soft Spot : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

If Clem Snide frontman Eef Barzelay had a voice as pretty as this Brooklyn band's often delicate, sometimes acoustic music, this album would be as irresistible a call to nap time as a late-afternoon spring drizzle. But his crackly nerd vocals chafe against the lull, lending urgency to his promises ("I will swallow swords for you") and bite to his pep talks ("Don't let hurricanes hold you back"). There's a melancholy at this music's core that Barzelay successfully resists by generally attempting to understand someone else's feelings rather than expressing his own. And lyrics such as "I buried our love in the back yard/Until it thaws, we could play cards" so accurately capture the private language of lovers in all its opacity and sweetness that their sentiments feel recognizable even when they're not fully comprehensible.

KEITH HARRIS
(RS 925, June 26, 2003)