The Elected Album: “Bury Me In My Rings”

Blake Sennett has proven himself to be one the best song writers working today...both lyrically and structurally. Bury Me In My Rings is just further proof of this.

While the Elected's previous album, Sun, Sun, Sun is a personal favorite of mine, Bury Me In My Rings is closely closing the gap.

This album feels more mature...more self assured.

Songs such as "Jailbird", "See the Light", and "Time is Coming" are some of the strongest compositions Blake has produced yet. Additionally, in a perfect world, pop gems such as "Babyface", "When I'm Gone", and "Go For the Throat" would be heard blaring from radio stations everywhere...instead of some of the other bland, repetitive, by-the-numbers songs that currently get airplay.

All in all, this album is further proof that Blake was a (if not, the) driving force behind Rilo Kiley.

I look forward to hearing whatever Blake/the Elected offers next!

Like most longtime Rilo Kiley fans, I have been looking forward to new material from guitarist/vocalist Blake Sennett since that band's disappearance following the end of their tour supporting 2007's Under the Blacklight. The album exceeded my sky high expectations.

Five years has passed since the release of the Elected's under-appreciated 2006 album Sun, Sun, Sun. The first two very promising songs teased by the label, "Babyface" and "Go For the Throat," sounded more like funked out versions of Sennett's sole lead vocal performance on Under the Blacklight, the ethereal "Dream World," than they sounded like the guitar-first California jams of Me First and Sun, Sun, Sun.

Strong pre-release press from Filter, Speakers in Code, Stereogum, SYFFAL, and Spin raised expectations further while revealing that Sennett had considered himself retired all along, and that only recently had he rediscovered his love for music. In a candid interview posted on the blog Consequence of Sound Sennett told Dan Caffrey that he quit music because he "falsely accused music" of ruining his friendships with the people in his band. He credits a meeting with Rilo Kiley drummer Jason Boesel with leading him back into music making. Unfortunately, he's a lot more wary about being led back to Rilo Kiley. He told Caffrey, "I would say that if Rilo Kiley were a human being he's probably laying on his back in a morgue with a tag on his toe. Now, I see movies where the dead get up and walk. And when they do that, rarely do good things happen."

The possibility of a major falling out between Sennett and Rilo Kiley's singer (Sennett's ex-girlfriend) Jenny Lewis has become a preoccupation of core fans such as myself, leading many of us to cite anecdotes and deconstruct lyrics that hint at a deeply personal rift between the members of Rilo Kiley's songwriting team. While the truth may never be known, Bury Me In My Rings will certainly provide plenty of grist for that mill. The album seems loaded with thinly veiled references to Lewis. The song "Go for the Throat" paints its subject an overly ambitious success story "doing Late Night" who "trampled all of the good times". "Have You Been Cheated" ends with this couplet: "You may not know what you are but you know what you've done/Now you're back out on the road having fun." This seems like an obvious reference to Lewis's most recent record recorded with her boyfriend, Johnathan Rice, 2010's I'm Having Fun Now.

Sennett's lyrics remains compelling beyond real or imagined references to Lewis. The album tells the story of a tricky relationship between complex characters. The arc of the album resembles the arc of a relationship. The first track, "Born to Love You," depicts the beginning of a romance. Along the way, Sennett chronicles the twists and turns of a tumultuous, jealous, bitter relationship. In "This Will Be Worth It," a tender ballad that recalls the futuristic sound of the band's first album Me First, the song's narrator promises that all the ordeals will be worth it. In "Who Are You," Sennett's heartrending description of the life that should have been--a world in which his fictional couple stays together and has children--may be the album's best song. The album concludes with "Time is Coming" in which Sennett's narrative stand in hints at a resolution ahead.

Sennett's best performance on the record comes in the role of producer. He balances a wide range of elements in ways that serve the songs and create album cohesion. Nowhere is the arrangement burdened by unnecessary instrumentation. The songs cycle through a range of emotions and dynamics. Funky throwdowns freely give way to somber, dreamy ballads. Surprising production elements abound, such as the Pink Floyd-like screams of madness on "This Will be Worth It" or the snarling violin at the end of "Have You Been Cheated". The epic solos that were a hallmark of early Rilo Kiley albums are a thing of the past. The only face-melting guitar solo is on the funk jam "When I'm Gone," and it only lasts the requisite eight bars before the chorus comes back. That's about it for the fans of Sennett's shredding, of which I am one. Of course, that doesn't stop Sennett (and presumably contributing guitarists Mike Mogis and Mike Bloom) from filling the album to bursting with subtle and tasteful licks. Strings, keyboards and pianos are used for specific sonic purposes, never just to fill out the sound.

No matter what comes of Sennett's future with Rilo Kiley, with this album, Sennett has proven that The Elected deserves to continue making albums and touring for a very long time.

Love everything Blake has done and this is no exception. You can definitely feel the tension and conflict come spilling out in these songs. The Elected's best effort yet.

It used to be that ignoring Blake Sennett's integral role in Rilo Kiley was a grievous mistake. His buttery wisp of a tenor on songs like "Ripchord" and "Three Hopeful Thoughts" provided a nice counterpoint to Jenny Lewis' West Coast twang, while his 2004 solo album Me First under the Elected moniker made it quite obvious that the songwriting team in Rilo Kiley wasn't just Lewis and three faceless dudes. Me First was an album arguably better than anything Rilo Kiley have released, a strange yet appropriate amalgam of pedal steel alt-country and Postal Service-esque electronica, all held together by the ghost of Elliott Smith and Sennett's incisive lyrics. Yet just as Rilo Kiley leaned towards a more vapid sound on Under the Blacklight, Sennett careened more and more towards the pursuit of the perfect pop song, first in shades of country on 2006's Sun, Sun, Sun and now with Bury Me In My Rings, a fitting title indeed if the rings in question are made of fool's gold.

Bury Me In My Rings is an album begging to be ignored. Sennett's strengths are still well evident, from his hushed, anguished tenor to a knack for songwriting that eclipses most indie artists nowadays. If anything, his talents have improved; few artists can have a delicate finger-picked ballad like "Jailbird" sandwiched between the funky `70s AM stomp of "Look At Me Now" and the arena sing-a-long in "Go For The Throat." Unfortunately, his penchant for sickly sweet arrangements and lyrics as diary-centric as they pretend to be love weary has only increased. "Born To Love You" is the perfect introduction to Bury Me In My Rings, a flawless slice of summery pop rock, complete with shimmering keys and a soothing chord progression that calls to mind the pop classicists . . . only to be sabotaged by a line like "I was born to love you / and I'll love you / even if you're with someone new." Aw, isn't that just the cutest thing?

One could make the case that this is all part of the package, the simplistic lyrics fitting in nicely alongside Sennett's retro arrangements and glossy West Coast sunshine rock vibe. But then there's a song like "Who Are You," where Sennett marries melancholy strings to haunting atmospherics and faintly creepy lyrics, and it's easy to see that the Sennett of Me First isn't all that far off. Instead, the focus is clearly on barnstorming numbers like the tears-in-your-beer-and-violins surge of "Have You Been Cheated" and the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink mess of "This Will Be Worth It," a song that deserves more hyphenated descriptors than I care to use.

But hey, can the man still write a tune. Bury Me In My Rings is more to be criticized for what it could be than for what it actually does: as far as crafting hooks and envisioning an album that nearly replicates the best of old school California cool, Sennett is still one of the best around, as anything from "Born To Love You" to the introspective, regret-tinged shuffle closer "See The Light" clearly proves. When Sennett falters on a song, it's more from an ill-advised genre detours like the inoffensive `80s dance number "Babyface" than the man's own talent. "Babyface" doesn't really suck, per se, but in the context of the rest of Bury Me In My Rings, it's just a little too cheesy, too out of place. It's the worst of Sennett's tendencies all plopped in one poorly chosen single, embarrassing lyrics further marred by a beat that sounds like it should be shot back in a time machine to a roller-skating rink circa 1982 and never heard from again. Yet if that's what Sennett is going for, it sounds absolutely perfect, and that is exactly what is at the heart of Bury Me In My Ring's problem: Sennett's overwhelming perfectionism, his pursuit for the ideal pop song, is just as likely to submerge him in soft rock clichés and painfully obtuse lyricism as it is likely to lead him to an aces country-rock tune that sounds like the best song Fleetwood Mac never made. It's an interesting paradox and one that Sennett seems unlikely to solve on his current path, but even if he never does, there will always be some choice tunes to blare out on the summer highways, and the world can always use more of those.