Chad VanGaalen, Skelliconnection

Back in fall of 2005, when I first heard Vancouver-dweller Chad VanGaalen’s peculiar brand of indie-art-pop genius, on Infiniheart, his “debut” disc of two-year-old recordings, I found myself being pretty critical. It was great stuff when it worked, sure, but at the same time it felt half-assed, lazy. Songs would meander in and out, cut off unexpectedly, or linger on long past their expiration date, and that gave the whole affair a sort of blasé, who-gives-a-shit? feel. Which is fine, on occasion, but I thought it dragged down what could have been a genuinely classic album with just a little judicious editing.

New year, new (for real, this time) album, and with his first proper full-length, Skelliconnection, VanGaalen is finally playing for keeps. Where Infiniheart was unformed and disconnected, with all the great ideas of a Bob Pollard album and about as much follow-through, Skelliconnection feels well-thought-out and tightly constructed. There’s no emptying-out-the-junk-drawer lack of focus forcing the songs apart; this is definitely an album, a solid, cohesive whole. Songs begin and end when they’re supposed to and get their business done in the space in-between. And best of all, what happens in the middle is absolutely enthralling.

I’ll admit that I was a little nervous when opener “Flower Gardens” started off with crunches and bleeps, but when the buzzing, bassy guitars come crashing in, all my misgivings were blown away before the propulsive, driving rock. The track’s got a frantic urgency to it, heightened by the stuttering, near-panic vocals and the break midway through that squeezes in a blast of radio static. I’ve got no idea if VanGaalen’s got a single out yet for this album, but if he’s still trying to pick one, “Gardens” is a surefire winner for the trophy. Of course, that’s a little unfair to the rest of the disc, because it’s damned difficult to pick one solitary standout song. “Burn 2 Ash,” for one, makes me smile goofily while my head bobs in time to the clicking, breakneck drums; the song’s quieter and less manic, but it’s got this joyous sound to it that brings to mind fellow Canucks the New Pornographers.

Then there’s “Red Hit Drops,” which just seems to get better (and stranger) every time I hear it. It’s beautiful and understated, the combination of electronic beats, synths, and pretty guitar-pop making me think of the Postal Service’s best moments, and that beauty and sweetness makes the lyrics about, um, drinking blood even creepier. Having now heard both this album and Infiniheart, by the way, I’m thinking that VanGaalen’s a bit obsessed with bodily fluids, and body parts in general — “Blood Machine” and “Red Blood” off the last disc and this track and the ’70s rock-ish “See-Thru-Skin” off this new one being prime examples. Not that being obsessed with blood is anything new, mind you; human beings have been fascinated with stuff since long before we figured out what the hell it was, after all. And given that VanGaalen’s also an artist (he did all the cover art, as well as the two videos on the CD, which I’ll get to in a minute), an interest in the body seems pretty appropriate. What’s really surprising, though, is how well he makes it work for his songs. Beyond the Pixies or Neutral Milk Hotel, I honestly can’t think of anybody who can sing like this about fluids and skin and make it catchy and cool.

The fascination with the body ties into another aspect of Skelliconnection, as well, and that’s a kind of recurring motif about death (and sleep, too, which has been connected in our brains since the dawn of time). The most overt track is “Graveyard,” which also happens to be the most straightforward country-folk bit on here, but there’s also “Sing Me 2 Sleep,” all quiet guitars, strings, flutes, and muted drums. It comes off like a Mark Kozelek song, depressive and sweet, at the same time. “Gubbbish” grabs hold of the sleep theme, too, and when VanGaalen sings “I’m never going to sleep,” it sounds more like a threat than a complaint or a promise. “Dead Ends” starts off delicate and measured, but once the murky, stomping bass comes in, it’s clear that the song’s darker than that (something that’s borne out when VanGaalen wonders if beating the fight against a disease ruins the surprise of death). By the time it eventually explodes into bombastic, The Bends-worthy arena rock, roaring and surging like storm-driven waves, it’s become a triumphant elegy for loved ones who’ve passed on. There’s a more earthy feel to this album than there was to Infiniheart — there’s no swooping alien mini-epics, but rather a set of delicate meditations on the nature of our bodies, of dying, and of life itself.

“Rolling Thunder” allows VanGaalen to quiet down and let his voice go a bit, soaring and warbling eerily and stepping beyond even Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg for atmospheric ghostliness. “Wing Finger” does something similar, focusing on gentle banjo-plucking and ending up haunting and melancholy, while “Mini T.V.’s” takes another tack, going for loopy, sloppy slacker-rock — think Wayne Coyne fronting Pavement. I love the way it ends, with the line “Mixtapes / Try to stay awake / Ride my rusty bicycle / into the lake” all set to plinking bells. Even the little throwaway instrumentals (“Dandrufff,” “Systemic Heart,” “Viking Rainbow”) seem to fit perfectly, serving less to distract from the “real” songs than to break up the proceedings a bit. And hey, how can you get bored when you cram 15 songs into just under 40 minutes?

I should note that I watched the videos, too — and whoo, boy, are they as trippy as you’d pretty much expect from the music. I can’t tell you what the hell the video for “Red Hot Drops” is about, but there’re weirdly-shaped birds, drops of blood and water that morph into people, and mounds of mobile vegetation, and that goes double for the video for “Flower Gardens,” which starts with malevolent wolf-headed cars trying to run down what looks like a Star Wars character and then flashes to scratchy drawings of a guy playing and eating his guitar (before he evolves into a bat). Oh, and then there’s the bit with the squid dragging the boat to the bottom of the ocean, and the psychedelic toilet, and the swirly, smiling ghosts, and…okay, you get the idea. Remember that strange kid who sat at the back of the class and seemed to spend his time either frantically drawing or methodically carving his name into his arm with a mechanical pencil? Well, this is akin to watching his drug-addled doodlings come to life and spiral around on the page, set to music that’s pouring out of his gifted-yet-confused brain and straight into the ether.

In the end, I have to congratulate Mr. VanGaalen for not just defeating this reviewer’s expectations but beating them to a bloody pulp, chaining them to something heavy, and dropping ’em in a lake so they don’t ever make it back to the surface. Way back when, I declared that I hoped Infiniheart would be the shot across the bow — this one’s the direct hit.