The World Won't End
The second record by the Pernice Brothers, Joe Pernice's bright-eyed neo-country troupe, is an album that tackles themes of magnificent love, desperate frustration, and spirit-mangling depression.The World Won't Endis far from an extended misery tract, though; well-versed in the canon ofBacharach,Wilson, andBig Star, Pernice has always reveled in loosing the most difficult of emotions into a rolling meadow of summertime pop. These 11 tracks are wrapped up in a gorgeous whirl of pedal steel, violin, and cello that is elegant, cathartic, and--best of all--really nice to listen to when the sun's out. "Our Time Has Passed" mulls painfully over the nostalgic memories of a dead love affair: "There's a box I still can't open / There's a name that hurts to say / I fall in love with the way I'm shaking/ In a crowd I think I see your face." "Working Girl (Sunlight Shines)," meanwhile, is a brief but beautifully observed vignette of a young temp stuck in a dead-end job, left "contemplating suicide or a graduate degree." Throughout, though, Pernice's sympathetic vocals, full of hope and purity, turn such empty impasses into a celebration of humanity. The message ofThe World Won't End? Simply that life goes on.--Louis Pattison