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Chris Walla: Field Manual

05th February 2008 | by Aidan Williamson

...In which we offer an in-depth, note for note comparison between the music of Chris Walla, the solo project and his day job, Death Cab For Cutie.

As Sarah Harding will soon find out, this is how the albums of breakaway factions are approached. As is the case this time also, the comparison does no favours to “Field Manual”, but we thought there was a much more apt counterpart for parallel analysis.

Deviating from the deeply person lyrics of his other band, Walla goes instead for political and social commentary. When Bright Eyes' Connor Oberst decided to do the same thing with his side-project Desaparecidos, he switched the alt. country groove for red-raw, white-knuckle, indie gestating punk, whereas Walla sticks predominantly to the same style to which he has spent his formulative years. With the constant focus on bittersweet melancholy and mid-tempo numbers. “Field Manual” isn't so likely to incite a riot as to nudge a procession of placards proclaiming “Down with this sort of thing!”

Some will regard Walla's newest solo effort as comfortably familiar, indeed the guitars are suitably upbeat and jangly, The drums experiment with the many different varients of bass on 1, snare on 3. We presume there must be bass guitar, because, well, there always is. As for the vocals,they are the usual, pleasingly light and airy with an aura of reverb.

All of this begs the question as to why this album was truly necessary. True, Walla may of felt that some of his artistic concepts were being left by the wayside, but sometimes that is for the best. The slant of the 21st century has very much shifted to collective art. Whereas once, it would of been inconceivable to have 6 people camped around a canvas each equipped with brushes and some chick called Lisa sitting a few feet away, now, the collective process is the norm and serves to weed out flights of fancy and trips of egotism. An exclusion process which often results in a sum greater than it's parts.

There is still a lot to enjoy within “Field Manual”, most of the meat is very much around the third act which kickstarts with “Everybody On”. Crossing this threshold seems to lever proceedings up a gear, leading to highlight “St. Modesto” which is one of, if not 'the' most engaging songs on the album with it's incessant, channelling structure. Final track, “Holes” pushes the mood to subdued, and where a lesser artist would of traditionally adopted the clarion call of “cue the violins”. Walla instead vetoes this in favour of restraint, leaving a decidedly emotive taste in ones mouth.