One Track Mind

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Prior to coming across “Violet!” I had never heard of Jeremy Messersmith; now I’m kicking myself for not having found him sooner. The Minneapolis songwriter already has two releases under his belt (2006′s The Alcatraz Kid and last year’s The Silver City) and will complete the trilogy with the May 4th release of The Reluctant Graveyard via The Cedar. Messersmith traffics in an immediately recognizable stripe of chamber-pop whose roots are tangled in the big B’s (Burt Bacharach, Beach Boys, Beatles) and whose dendrites include acts like The Chamber Strings, The Ladybug Transistor, and The Divine Comedy. His compositions have the uncanny ability to defy gravity, their melodies propelling themselves ever higher into the stratosphere.

With an appealing and slightly throaty voice–it could be a cousin to Chris Collingwood‘s of Fountains of Wayne–Messersmith begins “Violet!” accompanied by the twinkle of upper-register piano chords, which tap out the downbeats like a whimsical metronome. From there the song begins its upward trajectory, beginning the glide up that exponential curve with some tentative guitar strums before the drums start pushing things farther skyward. While it is easy to imagine a well-placed string-section throughout some of the track’s quieter moments, the truth is that there is no need to crowd the pan. By the time Messersmith directs things through the final minute, about as impeccably dexterous a display of pop songcraft as you are likely to hear in quite some time, one realizes the importance of the more blank spaces he has left on the canvas. With its final, transcendent key change, “Violet!” proves its mettle as a slice of poppy genius before taking a final bow.