Clem Snide Go South

Brooklyn hipsters, bow your heads for a moment of silence: Clem Snide have left the borough. The band that served as a veritable mascot of New York indie-rock irony for the last decade release their fourth album, The End of Love, today from a new locale. Recorded in part in frontman and songwriter Eef Barzelay's adopted home of Nashville, the record seamlessly melds the sounds and sensibilities of jazz, folk, country, pop and rock -- everything that has defined Clem Snide over the last decade.

Drawing from the wealth of resources in Nashville, the album features local Lambchop hero Paul Burch, Ben Perowsky, Tony Crow, Ben Martin and engineer/producer Mark Nevers. Holding down the Brooklyn fort are regular Clem players: cousins Fitzpatrick, multi-instrumentalist Pete and bassist Brendan, along with producer Bryce Goggin (Pavement, the Ramones). For the first time, Barzelay served as producer, making the album more thoroughly a product of his vision. "I wanted to make my own record," he says. "I didn't want to feel beholden to anyone at all."

In every sense, The End of Love is a true follow-up to Clem Snide's last effort, 2003's Soft Spot, which abandoned the hopelessly self-involved pose of the critically acclaimed Ghost of Fashion for the spirit of other hopeless souls -- those in love. Barzelay characterizes the record in typical Clem ying/yang fashion as "a triumphant failure." "You know that scene in Rocky, when he runs up the steps?" Barzelay asks. "It was kind of like that for me."

While Soft Spot was written and recorded in the span of Barzelay's marriage and the birth of his son, The End of Love was created during a time of personal crisis. "My mom was dying of cancer, my career wasn't really going anywhere and the vibe in the band wasn't good," he explains. "We were living in New York City and had no money, and our friends had moved away, so I felt like I was staring failure in the face. The record was my attempt to take control of that feeling and fuck with it a little bit, to defy it."

But this "failure" made The End of Love the band's finest work to date, with its signature combination of slinky jazz references, lonesome country twang, indie angst and pop shimmer. The album is a meditation on what "for better or worse" really means -- but without ever losing his sharp wit and subtlety. "Well, I heard he used to beat her like she was a conga drum/They always slept in separate beds though somehow they had a son," he sings in "Made for TV Movie," a surprisingly heartfelt song about Lucille Ball.

"I'm amazed that I've made five records," Barzelay reflects. "With The Ghost of Fashion, I remember saying that if this record doesn't break, then we're done. Then we made Soft Spot, and I was like, 'Well, this record has to . . .' Somehow we keep it going. I'm not sure how . . . I'm trying to persevere. Actually, I don't know what else I would do."