Orents Stirner, Our Names In Concrete

Albums like Orents Stirner’s Our Names In Concrete are why music reviewers find the word “stark” so necessary. Like Pink Moon with an infinitesimally larger recording budget, it’s built on a lot of acoustic guitar, a single voice, a touch of reverb and the barest smattering of other instruments not performed by lone permanent member Fletcher Stafford. It’s not a determinedly focused singularity like Pink Moon, though, just a collection of fractured, lugubrious tunes that aren’t given enough room to build to anything particularly substantial. That’s the Guided By Voices problem, but the songs on Our Names In Concrete don’t possess the immediate melodic explosions that counteracted GbV’s compositional fragmentation, opting instead for a downcast Magnolia Electric Co flatline that’s more enervating than affecting. The end result is a collection that sounds important and deeply meaningful to the person responsible for it but throws up a wall before reaches the outside of the speakers. When “Future Was Red” invokes “Wish You Were Here” before becoming a continuation of the preceding “Making Plans,” I find myself wishing that I was listening to that album instead.