The band Dead Man’s Bones, who has just released their debut album, has a lot going for it, and a lot working against it. One of the main aspects that could fall under both categories that must be discussed off the bat is that it is the pet project of actor, Oscar nominee and professional heartthrob Ryan Gosling. Yes, the dude from The Notebook.

Apparently, unsatisfied by movie star good-looks, millions of dollars, six pack abs, and throngs of adoring young girls who melt when they see his well-trimmed, non-threatening facial hair, Gosling decided to get together with friend Zach Shields and the Silverlake Conservatory of Music Children’s Choir and toss off an album’s worth of spooky songs seemingly inspired by Tom Waits and the soundtrack of Disney’s Haunted Mansion.

Gosling in choosing this diversion isn’t breaking new ground exactly: it’s not too remarkable for a successful actor to decide to show the world how well-rounded they are and there are currently several cross-over successes (if you can call the nauseating faux-Billie Holiday act that Zooey Descanel’s She and Him gives us a “success”) to point to. The difference here is that, aesthetically, this a project aligned with something far darker than your average Pete Yorn and Scarlet Johansen collab. Looking like a well-dressed undertaker, Gosling plunks piano keys and strums guitars while singing about graveyards, haunted houses, tell-tale hearts, and ghosts; behind him Shields keeps a tribal throb playing almost exclusively on tom-toms; an act made more unsettling by the fact they appear to be surrounded by the boys choir from The Village of the Damned.

The reviewer should now take his time to confess his bias: why did Ryan Gosling need to do this? Doesn’t he realize that this is personally offensive to the reviewer who has strived through his own musical endeavors to cultivate this sort of air of spookiness, just to see Mr. Gosling knock this one off, out of the blue? Does Mr. Gosling realize how hard this reviewer tries, and yet still he finds himself toiling in obscurity? Why does Mr. Gosling have to be so fucking handsome while doing it?

That out of the way, there should be a lot to like in this particular project. Gosling seems sincere in his commitment to the general air of spookiness and has gathered all his ducks in a row in his pursuit of making what could be the album version of a haunted cemetery stroll: tribal drums? Check. Hammond organ? You betcha. Spooky ghost moans? Never leave home without ‘em. Low, mournful croon? Bitch, please.

And on the tightly wound, three-minute outings like the single “In the Room Where You Sleep” and “Dead Man’s Bones” the formula works. Even the ballad throwback “My Body’s a Zombie For You” seems to work passably well towards whatever sinister, ruggedly-handsome goals Mr. Gosling has in creating the album.

The problem lies with the rest of the album being pretty damn boring. For every goth-pop diamond listed above, there is a whole lot of painfully slow, overly austere rough you have to sift through. Dead Man’s Bones seems obsessed with creating “atmosphere” through the use of long interludes where a few piano keys are hit, Gosling making a spooky ghost noise in an echo chamber, and nothing really happening. Some songs trudge a batan death march of four minutes. Furthermore, the children’s choir trick gets old fast and by the fifth song where they’ve taken the lead, it’s starting to sound like a damn summer camp sing-along.

The issue is that what’s being done, in spite of embracing the horror aesthetic more fully than we are prepared to accept from a successful movie star, is musically pretty uninspired. The songs are all type you might hear any Bright Eyes or Peter Bijorn and John or any other overly sincere indie rocker do, replacing the oblique references to a relationship with the story of a girl who drowned in a lake.

Admittedly, having derivative songs and goofy gimmicks is pretty par for the course in the genre. But the air of over-seriousness is what makes the whole album somewhat difficult to listen to. Check out the good songs below, and skip the filler.

Tags: Dead Man's Bones

This entry was posted by gray on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 7:53 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.