Album Review: ‘Where Have You Been All My Life?’

Conor O’Brien has a voice that lives simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic. Thin and reedy yet soft and yearning, O’Brien’s voice contains a magical quality – no doubt helped by his mesmerizing Irish lilt – to tell stories and tall tales in the spirit of the Irish, to precisely deliver meaning in the manner of American folk and soul singers.

With the five-person folk band Villagers, O’Brien, its lead singer, sounds most at home. In the group’s most recent album “Where Have You Been All My Life?,” he sings delicate lyrics that lie on rollicking tunes performed by his bandmates, creating a record that starts strong and ends strong in its spontaneity and freshness.

From the start, Villagers picks up where its April album “Darling Arithmetic” left off. The metaphorical phrases of opener “Set The Tigers Free” (“Farewell to my only friend / You’ve been so good to me / Now the carnival has ended / Let’s set the tigers free”) allow the instrumentals to take the opposite approach, gently washing over the listener in a spontaneous, minimalist manner.

There is a significant amount of trust evident between O’Brien and the band, who masterfully complement crisp, compelling phrases with flowing tone. After all, the entire album was recorded in one day at London’s RAK Studio, with many of the songs played only once or twice before being given the OK. In each arrangement, the chemistry among the members – the cause and effect of the free-flowing tone – becomes a third, equally important narrative.

“That Day” is the standout song of the album, with O’Brien’s voice plaintively intoning a story of the written and spoken word. O’Brien translates a raw sound of sadness into words, making it easy to understand the emotion behind otherwise abstract phrases like “They never meet, never touch, never speak and for one tired old refrain.”

In a live session, there’s nowhere to hide. O’Brien and the rest of Villagers’ every move and every mistake can be scrutinized by the listener, especially in a day and age of heavy processing that accustoms listeners to a squeaky clean record. Recording live, thus, is both a blessing and a curse: While the raw emotion and band chemistry are not edited out, neither are the slip-ups.

Songs like “Hot Scary Summer” and “The Soul Serene” have issues with melody and lyrics, a shame because these two problem songs are placed closely together in the middle of the album, the most critical point to hold the often waning attention of the listener.

The slightly stilted melody of “Hot Scary Summer” undermines the sharp beauty of the lyrics. The fresh sparsity of “The Soul Serene” is marred by the nonsensical outro (“Step into the soul serene / The soul serene”), which is repeated to a dull throb by the end of the song.

In any other record, the post-recording edits would have rendered these errors null. Here, the live sessions magnify the blunders.

After the disappointing “Hot Scary Summer,” however, Villagers forgets the mistakes and delivers the rest of the album with its magical combination of gossamer tones and pointed poetry. As O’Brien’s lilting voice brings the album to an end with “Wichita Lineman,” the last note from the medley of electronic and folk instruments disappears into a soft puff of air. The band’s chemistry, even at the end of the album, is tangible.

“Where Have You Been All My Life?” is a visceral work by Villagers, and its one-take-in-one-day concept works for rather than sinks the album. Supported by the brisk and highly metaphorical lyrics, the live combination of O’Brien’s delicate voice and the band’s flowing instrumentals is a welcome respite from the often frantic, Frankenstein-esque method of creating modern songs.

With “Where Have You Been All My Life?,” Villagers has taken charge of its sound to create a lovely work worthy of transatlantic enjoyment.

– Shreya Aiyar