Rotary Downs
Cracked Maps and Blue Reports - Rookery
FILTER Grade: 80%

At any given moment, James Marler can sound like a combination of Bill Callahan, Mason Jennings and Stephen Malkmus. These disparate voices
are indicative of Marler’s group, Rotary Downs, and its ability to stand
between the borders of different worlds: indie and pop, mainstream and
underground, trepidation and confidence. On Cracked Maps and Blue
Reports, the New Orleans group’s fifth release, Rotary Downs don’t
bridge these worlds so much as stand above them, trying to decide where
exactly to land. Rotary Downs make radio-ready indie rock that isn’t
quite comfortable with that fact, lending Cracked Maps both its
charm—Marler’s I-hate-to-tell-you delivery—and its downfalls—all those
half-hearted “woo hoo hoo’s”. They finally let go on “Ragna Rok,” with
its noodly intro that mounts into a searing guitar anthem somehow worthy
of both Built to Spill and No Age. Marler’s lyrics, even when they
don’t make linear sense (“Parking, cannons, copper spheres/engines
roaring, lions, lions”) are wonderfully textured—they’re both intimate
and powerful. Its stuttered rhythms, though, mark Cracked Maps
as perfectly New Orleanian: both high and low, in and out, joyous and
mournful.