Albums you shouldn't let slip by
By SAM PFEIFLE | November 11, 2009
After a few days of Indian Summer to remind us of the summer we nearly didn't have, it's timely to shed some warm light on albums released recently that didn't get their proper due.
Evan Casas, Surround Yourself
Though you may know him from collaborations with local frontmen Elijah Ocean and Dave Gutter, Evan Casas has released a full-length disc to serve notice that he's a songwriter in his own right. Though it suffers from some of the inorganic qualities that are hard to escape when a solo artist constructs a multi-layered, multi-instrumental album over an extended period of time, there are moments here of dark beauty and simmering passion.
With elements of other solo album constructors like Bon Iver and Beck, Casas meshes brooding pacing with digital decor that makes songs as sharp as his sentiment. "Dear Future Wife" is literally stormy, with thunderclaps and a constant rain backing Casas doing a desperate tenor: "Waiting at home for you every night is what I need to do." The title track is ironically upbeat, a lot like some of the best stuff Satellite Lot put out, with a terrific chorus full of building keyboard notes and a cycling central message that sounds like good advice: "Surround yourself with the people who need you/Surround yourself with the people you need to be with."
There are some heavier elements in "Keep in Touch," which moves from downbeat hair metal to upbeat stoner rock, and some slightly silly pseudo-hip-hop in "Where I Am" (reminiscent of "Where It's At"; on purpose?), but the album succeeds most when Casas allows himself to build the swirling soundscapes of the Depeche Mode-esque "Dream of Ribbons," the experimental "Game Over," and the anthemic "Exit" that finish the album in a three-song suite of studio artistry.
Related:
Elijah Ocean, Tony Smokes and the Ladykillers, Portland Music News: June 26, 2009, Flying solo (and duo), More 
- Elijah Ocean, Tony Smokes and the Ladykillers
Yes, we know that there are important albums being released by ELIJAH OCEAN and the new duo of DAVE GUTTER and EVAN CASAS in the very near future. Pfeifle can't review everything in the same week, for Christ's sake, so just lay off and wait till next week.
- Portland Music News: June 26, 2009
The "Sibilance" staff sat in on DAVE GUTTER's new project, with EVAN CASAS, being mastered by ADAM AYAN at Gateway. The record's called The Key to Adore and is more organic and subdued than what you've heard from Gutter before. Watch out for his cover of "The Man Comes Around." Look for the disc by end of summer.
- Flying solo (and duo)
Think about everything you know about Elijah Ocean and Dave Gutter: Ocean's work fronting the heavy rock trio Loverless, say, or his lead-guitar turn in the radio-rock foursome All the Real Girls; Gutter's piercing vocals out front of Rustic Overtones, or his white-hot bounce in the lead of Paranoid Social Club.
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