Breaking Laces – When You Find Out [7.2]
Breaking Laces‘ lead singer Willem Hartong knows a lot about making the audience feel his message. The Brooklyn trio’s fourth album, When You Find Out, gives the versatile vocalist ample opportunity to reel listeners in while bassist Rob Chojnacki and drummer Seth Masarsky provide an indispensable backdrop.
The bandmates, who have collaborated since 2005′s Lemonade, found a way to seamlessly integrate songs from their past with new material. Tracks 2 (“God In Training,” Sohcahtoa), 4 (“Laser Beams,” Operation Income), 6 (“Shopping for Two,” Live At Seaside), 8 (“Angeline,” Live At Seaside), 10 (“This World,” Lemonade) and 12 (“I Do, I Don’t,” Lemonade) are revisits. The other tracks, all love songs in some regard, fit in nicely with the even-numbered songs on the album.
When You Find Out‘s intro track, “What We Need,” is a sorrowful song about a relationship that’s taken a turn for the worse. Hartong croons on about the pain of trying to make failing relationship work. “I will take this bit of sorrow, if it’s all I have to borrow from you // I concede, there are just too many answers, I am tired of making sense of what we need.”
“God In Training” is a fun and funky chronicle of the life of quite possibly the coolest man alive. He has more friends than he can count and quips, in the hook, “No time for fornication, but once I quit my paper route, she’ll want my body.”
“When You Find Out,” the album’s title track, is a melodic tale of seemingly unrequited love. Its poignant message being that the fear of what might happen next is countered by the comfort of extreme infatuation.
“Laser Beams” is a refreshingly clean counter to the emotional “We Can Be Great,” a song extolling the possibilities that await a yet unrealized love. “Shopping for Two” is a folksy love song that highlights the benefits having someone to love and–more simply–to share grocery shopping with.
The back half of the album maintains a similar feel to the beginning with the exception of “Angeline,” a guitar- and drum-heavy dedication to a past lover. Although “Angeline” has a different feel, it doesn’t sound misplaced and actually brings a welcome change to the more downbeat ballads.
Overall, the album presents a pseudo-cohesive message, catering to different varieties of music lovers without abandoning the group’s acoustic pop roots. It’s definitely a collection of tracks that can be played from beginning to end with each song being enjoyable for its own reasons.
Words by Mia Drane-Maury
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