Slowreader, Slow Reader

I've been a Lakers fan for as long as I've followed basketball, and right now, I'm watching them get pummeled by the freaking Celtics in Game 6 of the NBA Finals.  I was hoping the Lakers would have a chance to repeat as world champions next year, but I guess they're going to have to settle for just one ring, Phil Jackson's tenth, in 2009 (and then a few more after that).  Here's how it'll happen, in case you're curious: Andrew Bynum will return, giving us a frontcourt of Bynum, Pau Gasol, and Lamar Odom, with Derek Fisher and Kobe Bryant in the backcourt and Sasha Vujacic, Trevor Ariza, and Jordan Farmar the first subs off the bench.  That team will be hungry and unstoppable (especially if we can unload VladRad, who is awful).  I take solace in that fact right now.

The other thing consoling me right now is Slowreader's eponymous album.  I popped it in for my commute to work this morning and - surprise! - it was refreshing and new.  Back when I had listened to this album a few years ago, I had dismissed them, I think, as Elliot Smith-lite.  There's some merit to that - if Elliot Smith divided in half, sat up a little straighter, and strummed rather than picked his guitar, that would be Slowreader's sound, kind of.  

Slowreader more accurately reminds me of the slow food movement, which emphasizes fresh, simple ingredients, slightly complicated.  That's what this band does here - they don't do anything fancy on guitar, on drums, or in production.  What gets you are the vocal descants floating above several of the songs, the tight harmonies.  Wait; tight is too easy a word for it.  It's almost as though the harmonies are lyrics themselves, like the sound they produce have something of their own to say.  

And it's not all the same sound, the same song over and over again.  There's only one track that I really wanted to skip because it seemed not to end (even though it was only three and a half minutes - "Aging in Rhythm," if you're curious).  Everything else felt new and different, innovative.  

I recommend this CD to Paul Pierce for when he's recovering from the surgery he'll no doubt require, given how painfully he injured his knee back in Game 1. [/sarcasm]