Music, Record Reviews

New Record: Windsor for the Derby, How We Lost

Posted by: Johnny Loftus on May 28, 2008 at 1:00 pm


Windsor for the Derby, How We Lost (Secretly Canadian, 2008)

Listen: “Hold On”
[audio:http://www.detour-mag.com/audio/HoldOn.mp3]

Giving Up the Ghost, Windsor for the Derby’s 2005 album, was made with the benefit of having the entire group living in the same spot. Windsor main dudes Dan Matz and Jason McNeeley collaborated in a studio together instead of trading tapes through the mail, and they settled on a full-time rhythm section. The result was an album that sounded more like a band than WFTD had in a while. It’s like that on How We Lost, too, which travels to the legendary melancholy and dramatic, sometimes claustrophobic shimmer of Factory Records for material such as “Hold On,” “Maladies,” and the angry bees in a sewer system intro to “What We Want.” There is also “Fallen Off the Earth,” which sets its mechanized trolley rhythms against spiny guitars, halting harmonies (hello, American post-punk), and even a bit of keyboard. Over twelve years and seven albums, Windsor for the Derby have never responded well to structure or templates, which means the more cohesive and sightly louder moments on their eighth full-length counts as rock band material. They offset this with brief interludes like “Robin Robinette” — it’s little more than a warbling keyboard tone — and “Troubles,” where guitars pluck and whine like animals pawing at the same piece of meat. These pieces don’t really go anywhere, but they work as counterpoints to WFTD’s desires to soak the flinty sound of early 80s Factory bands with introspective American post-rock. — Thomas Rooker White

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