Search - James Combs :: Please Come Down

After playing out life in a locally acclaimed, Indiana-based college rock band, James Combs transplanted to Southern California, cultivating his winsome voice and intellectual songwriting into an artful, multifaceted version of Elliot Smith's fragile folk rock. Smith taps his creativity from a depressed stupor, but Combs appears to find his inspiration in the studio. Reverberation, either processed ("Something Resembling Sleep") or natural ("Strange Intervention"), shimmies and undulates beneath a counterpoint of his delicate, breathless voice. His vocal attack decays quickly after expelling each line, and the effect builds a wonderful sense of urgency, as if Combs is being chased down by his own music. Sonically, the songwriter departs from Smith and shares Radiohead's adventurous spirit. Most of his tracks build on an unlikely launching pad of simple acoustic rhythm guitar, but the approach from there is synth-detailed, risky, and emotive, yet precisely controlled (even the "woot-wooh"s seem calculated). Like Radiohead's albums, the vibe on Please Come Down is dusky. The disc exposes a hypersensitive nerve, but strokes the electricity with reserve, finessing this rare construct where the mind and the heart find equal living space. This isn't a debut from a new artist, but rather a solo venture from the leader of a great band you've probably never heard of. No matter what you call it, Please Come Down contends to be one of the best alt-rock albums of the year. --Beth Massa