The unctuous lounge-lizard croon that marks the singing of Dead Rider’s Todd Rittman has started to fray on the group’s fantastic new album, Crew Licks (Drag City), as if to suggest that his sinister shadiness is getting tangled within his own web of deceit. As usual, it’s often difficult to know exactly what he’s going on about, and when there’s some relatively clear idea at work it’s unsavory: “The Listing” seems to be about some kind of desperation-driven prostitution (replete with samples of an auctioneer at full tilt), while on “When I Was Frankenstein’s” the narrator boasts about carrying a feathery umbrella and wearing a fine cap despite being a monster.…
The unctuous lounge-lizard croon that marks the singing of Dead Rider’s Todd Rittman has started to fray on the group’s fantastic new album, Crew Licks (Drag City), as if to suggest that his sinister shadiness is getting tangled within his own web of deceit. As usual, it’s often difficult to know exactly what he’s going on about, and when there’s some relatively clear idea at work it’s unsavory: “The Listing” seems to be about some kind of desperation-driven prostitution (replete with samples of an auctioneer at full tilt), while on “When I Was Frankenstein’s” the narrator boasts about carrying a feathery umbrella and wearing a fine cap despite being a monster.…