Doris & The Daggers [CD]

It’s been eight years since Scott Kannberg, aka Spiral Stairs, released any new music. He knows that. The years just have a habit of slipping away sometimes. The Real Feel – the Pavement guitarist and Preston School Of Industry leader’s 3rd album – arrived in 2009, just as Pavement were announcing a hugely successful burst of reunion shows through 2010. “then, after the Pavement shows, I moved with my wife to go live in a house in Australia,” the amiable Scott remembers, of those years of seeming inactivity. “then we had a kid, and that sort of got in the way. I tried to do music, but all of a sudden it was two years later and I’m mowing my lawn and tending my garden.” You can’t hurry genius – not even the genial, unforced and unpretentious genius that has long been Scott’s forte. What’s for sure is his second album as Spiral Stairs, Doris And the Daggers, is worth the wait. It’s some of the best music Scott’s been involved with, and also some of the most personal and emotional music he’s ever written, reflecting the life changes that occurred over those eight years. During that stretch, Scott weathered the loss of friends, treasured the joys of fatherhood, lived life as an Australian and even ate haggis meat – experiences that inform these warm, sweetly melodic and soundly honest songs. Instead of a week-long blitz, Doris And the Daggers was recorded over a more civilized, considered batch of short sessions at Exactamundo studios in Eagle Rock, California. Long-time low-end foil Matt Harris returned on bass duties, while the drum-stool was adopted by Broken Social Scene’s Justin Pero. e trio cut 30 songs in all, while a number of Scott’s close musical friends stepped in to make some key contributions. Pero ’s Broken Social Scene cohort Kevin Drew sang on "Emoshuns," Kelley Stoltz lent guitar to the summery chime of "AWM," and e National’s Matt Berninger lends vocals to the bittersweet "Exiled Tonight."