Joan Of Arc

Tim Kinsella is less than appreciated by Pitchfork — that is to say hated. His band’s albums, which with Eventually, All at Once now number nine, are routinely slagged by the popular internet site (and others) mainly for their perception of Kinsella as an overly/needlessly erudite navel-gazer. You have to wonder then if the included cover of Robert Wyatt’s "Free Will and Testament” ending the album is a kind of flare to point out celebrated others who’ve tramped the same lyrical ground. Eventually is a spacious, acoustic guitar-centred album, recorded over five days in the childhood home of Tim and Mike Kinsella. JOA’s version of front porch folk includes serpentine chord progressions, glassy hand percussion and passages about "early Copernicans.” The sedate mood has a slight soporific effect, but relief arrives with the vibe-inflected circular bounce of "Miss Cat Piss and Peppermint” and the staccato farfisa jumble of "If all these people can understand money.” With JOA’s many stylistic twists and back flips, nothing they put out would seem like a side trip, still Eventually has all the musical appearances of a corner-turning stripped and confessional album. However, the relatively plain-dealing instrumentation reveals Kinsella’s still cryptic lyrical non-sequiturs intact and denuded, for better or worse.