Language-Arts

This album is mostly soothing and subdued, with Kristen Cudmore's voice making quick, pointed gestures. It's a colourful contrast, but one that has morphed into a setting that's more a lively painting than a basic rainbow. "Cavity" sets the folk-tinged jazz tone to where Language Arts are going but settles fast into "White Socks in Birkenstocks" and then the title track, which gives the notion that times are getting poppier and sillier. Language Arts get back into serious gear after that. The upright bass, guitar and piano shine on "Lighthouse," "Grandfather of the Buffalo" and "Tuck it In," and the violin and drums on "Benson." The pairing of Cudmore with the music of the rotating band members at first is an odd one but it settles down, nestled like a sleeping cat into a warm evening, where it finds its home in "Stay There!"