The Paper Kites – At The Roadhouse

Americana | Blues | Country

71%

 

The term “background music” is often meant in a dismissive way. Used to describe something that completely fails to grab your attention, music so uninteresting that you end up forgetting that it’s even there. Safe to say we’ve all known music like that. Thing is, I’m not convinced music fading into the background is an inherently bad thing. Not every TV show needs to be a gripping drama, not every meal we eat needs to be a gourmet dinner – I’m perfectly content watching classic Simpsons with a bowl of ramen. 

There’s an understated and underappreciated art to fading into the background. Sometimes if you don’t notice something, that simply means it has done its job right. Think on the CGI in big blockbusters; the parts we notice are often those uncanny valley moments that miss the mark of believability. However, even within the same film, there’ll be hundreds or thousands of VFX shots that go into making an immersive and engaging world, wherein the fact that they go unnoticed is a point of pride. Continuing the cinematic thread, the most common form of “background music” we’re exposed to are film scores. Rarely does a great score pull your attention away from the experience on screen, but rather it aims to add to the experience, help build the tension and the sense of drama. It may not be the centre of attention, but you would certainly feel its absence. 

At The Roadhouse, the new record from Australian folk rock outfit The Paper Kites, feels to me like the good kind of background music – all it needs is the right scene in the foreground. Sitting alone with this record is not going to be the greatest listening experience of your year, but where it shines is as an accompanying soundtrack to a great experience. The dreamy swell of lap steel, the tender heart-warming harmonies, how often and how easily it settles into a soft blues guitar jam – there’s just a blissful, easy-listening vibe woven into the very fabric of the record, and not once is that spell broken. It’s the soundtrack to watching a calm tranquil sea shimmering in the glow of sunset, to a carefree cruise down a country road with the wind in your hair, an album for making memories to around a campfire with your loved ones. To borrow a term from music critic Steven Hyden, it’s a Patio Hall Of Fame Album; the perfect companion for afternoons spent in the hot sun, with a cold drink, and without a care in the world. 

These songs were born from the band’s month long residency in the quiet town of Campbell’s Creek. Creating their own studio/dive bar in an abandoned building, workshopping new material during the week, and jamming out on Friday and Saturday nights for any locals who happened to be drawn in like moths to a flame. Such a charming creative process, and you can really feel some of the hallmarks of that approach in the end result. In the record’s flow and cohesion, in it’s warmth and gentle pace. I close my eyes listening to the quaint mandolin driven country of ‘Rolling On Easy’ or sparse banjo of ‘Hurts So Good’, and I feel like I’m there with the band in their cosy Roadhouse.

I think the casual jamming has also done wonders for the band’s guitar work. Some of the bluesy breakdowns feel like a revelatory expansion of the band’s sound and stand out as the highlights of the album. ‘Black & Thunder’ has hints of Santana in its fuzzy tone and Latin rhythms, while the solo at the close of stunning centrepiece ‘Good Nights Gone’ is brimming with the melodic romanticism of Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham. But it’s closing track ‘Darkness At My Door’ that shines brightest for me. It reminds me of everyone gathering together on stage to sing ‘I Shall Be Released’ and the end of The Band’s The Last Waltz. I hear a few nods in the chorus melody, but moreover it just has that energy of everyone coming together at the end of the night to sing one last song with all they’ve got left. 

Over the years I’ve reviewed plenty of albums that felt like masterpieces, yet left me with little desire to return. Likewise there’s many enjoyable but otherwise unremarkable releases that I’ve ended up being drawn back to time and time again. I get the impression At The Roadhouse will fit firmly in that latter category. It’s far from the most memorable album released this year, but it is one that I have every intention of making memories with.