If You Didn't Laugh You'd Cry
Marah play things loose and easy on their self-produced fifth album, fusing folk-rock sincerity and garage-band recklessness with first-take immediacy. Since moving from Philadelphia to Brooklyn, they've put some musical distance between themselves and those frequent comparisons with a lower-rent (or at least younger and hungrier)Bruce Springsteen, though the harmonica that laces "Walt Whitman Bridge" conjures some familiar echoes. "City of Dreams" finds them channeling their innerSimon and Garfunkel, while the opening "The Closer" (go figure) sounds likeGraham Parkerfronting a neo-skiffle band. With "Out of Tune," songwriting brothers Dave and Serge Bielanko issue what amounts to a musical credo: "So what if we're out of tune with the rest of the world?" The go-for-the-throat vitality of the tracks makes theIf You Didn't Laugh You'd Crysound less produced than unleashed.--Don McLeese