03/25/08
Text: Danny Parker
Photographers: Dustin A. Beatty
When someone says the words love song, a lot of firsts come to mind—first dates and first kisses, inevitably bearing their own soundtrack when played back in your memory. Giving your heart away isn’t easy, though certain indelible tunes, played just so, help ease the process along. While some fans of DeVotchKa may not directly link their music to memories of sensual serenading, they can certainly remember the first time they fell in love with the band’s music. (Remember a little film called Little Miss Sunshine?) Since then, DeVotchKa’s signature sound has earned critical acclaim, fusing a hodge-podge of Eastern-bloc staccato with myriad additional influences, including a little south-of-the-border sound, rendering them one of the most original bands to record in the new millennium. Gogol Bordello might take frantic Gypsy sounds and order you to dance until you collapse; DeVotchKa draws from a similar musical vocabulary, though the mandate is less “party hard,” more “let’s get it on.”
Their newest album, A Mad and Faithful Telling, is slightly less melancholic and brooding than 2004’s How It Ends. It runs the gamut from the sort of upbeat tracks that Ennio Morricone would certainly appropriate if he were still scoring Spaghetti Westerns, to solemn songs of heartbreak and angst. It’s a holistic approach—a collection of songs fit for a romantic film that's not yet written.
