Music Millennium

Reviews:

This domestic re-release of Calgary busker Chad VanGaalen's 2004 debut, Infiniheart, contains the intimate home recordings of an ultra-prolific singer-songwriter (he claims to have enough material to fill 200 albums) who's found the perfect home at Sub Pop. Deftly, if inadvertently, reducing the vast sonic divide between labelmates the Shins, Iron and Wine and the Postal Service to a tenuous high wire, VanGaalen underpins indie pop bliss with a glitchy vagueness that's both otherworldly and remarkably human.

Armed with an acoustic guitar, a tiny drum kit and an array of homemade instruments (piano, violin, saxophone) whittled from scratch, VanGaalen plays supernal, understated and occasionally catchy tunes while singing in a voice that sounds constantly on the verge of tears. The first three songs-"Clinically Dead," "After the Afterlife" and "Kill Me in My Sleep"-are at the beginning for a reason; they're far and away (with the exception of "Somewhere I Know There Is Nothing" ) the best songs on an album that contains far too many (16 in total). Despite its length and overall lack of consistency, Infiniheart is an impressive introduction to a truly gifted singer-songwriter who's probably written at least 100 songs twice as good as these since the album was first recorded.