Disco de DeVotchKa: “How It Ends [Digipak]”

I can't stop listening to my DeVotchKa CDs. Over and over. Because something new has to be devoured, not sampled, right? Anyway, I can't get over how pretty their songs are. They use so many different instruments, they're like a rock orchestra that's traveled around the globe and taken samples from music everywhere. Listening to it is like being transported. It's magical. The lyrics are poetic, sometimes so sweet you wanna cry and sometimes so sad you wanna cry. And Nick Urata's voice is one of my favorites now. It's almost operatic at times, dramatic, romantic, and like an old lover calling you home. The music is very cinematic for sure - grand and gorgeous. I'm so glad to have seen Miss Sunshine - not only because it's such a great film, but because I would never have known of DeVotchKa. And they have brightened my world. Even the sad songs are hopeful in sound if not in lyric, and I just feel uplifted after hearing them.

While not a complete departure from their previous album, "Una Volta," "How It Ends" certainly has a different feel. It has an almost orchestral feel, though it is performed primarily by the band's four members. It feels like the band wrote this album as though it should always be played in a great concert hall, as the grandiose sound seems too big for a bar or rock dive. DeVotchKa have done a great thing in branching out further and not simply retracing the paths they have already walked. Certainly a band that deserves continued attention.

How It Ends is the best popular music album of 2004, by far. Fine songs (although you have to have some tolerance for sweetness, both in melody and lyrics), professional playing, unique instruments, strong lead vocals and a seemless integration of various folk styles with classic pop structure--it is wholly unlike anything else you will hear this year. Wait and see, this will show up on a lot of year-end best lists, especially on public and independent radio, where it's been getting a lot of play. For perspective, my other favorites this year were Fiery Furnaces, Animal Collective, Arcade Fire and the Walkmen.

Devotchka are so far beyond anything else out there right now. This disk is Classic. "Classic". Big fat capital "C". I'll be listening to this cd tomorrow and I'll be listening to it 50 years from now. It will play at my wedding, and at my funeral.A tear in my eye and a glass of wine in my hand. If anything this band is a simple reminder that real music has little to do with money, or style, or even intellect. Music is from the gut and from the soul. Thank God for Devotchka.

What in the hell? This group who blend Spanish, European, Bohemian and every other "out of the USA mainstream" hails from Denver Colorado. Whodaguestit?

"How it Ends" is the corker song from the Little Miss Sunshine movie but don't stop here. Song after song these guys manipulate acoustic guitar, near classical voice, and synthesizer into unique, but listen able, music.

Credit due to a group who kicked their way out of the box.