Marty Willson-Piper - Hanging out in Heaven
Rating: 84

Marty Willson-Piper has both the luxury and the burden of being "the guitarist from The Church." It's a luxury in many ways, because being a member of one of the only great guitar bands of the past 20 years that no one's ever heard of offers a vast tabula rasa on which to create a musical legacy. It's a burden, though, because how many "guitarists from …" have gone on to great success on their own?
Willson-Piper carries the weight well on his seventh solo outing, Hanging out in Heaven, the record that could perhaps make waves for him outside of the legendary "critically acclaimed" pool (which seems to swallow up so many great artists without the benefit of mainstream attention).

Willson-Piper spent five years writing and recording the album, releasing it on small San Francisco indie label Heyday Records (a coincidence, since one of the Aussie-based Church's first ripples in America was an album called Heyday) after seeing his previous solo efforts distributed on major indie Rykodisc. The fruit of his protracted labors, thankfully, is a timeless collection of 15 near-perfect, shimmering pop songs that span decades of rock and roll.

There are hints of the post-Sgt. Pepper Beatles here, warming a seat next to a bunch of Pink Floyd influences (most beautifully realized on "You Bring Your Love to Me"). On tracks like "Sanctuary," Willson-Piper's nearly 20 years of playing with The Church come to the fore with dense, full melody and ethereal vocals brimming over the top. But he really excels on heartbreaking, quiet ballads like "I Don't Think So," on which he reminisces of "dancing in a reggae club in Stockholm in the day," dedicating the song in the liner notes to: "loves lost everywhere." On tracks like "1929 Vintage Wine" Willson-Piper picks up the tempo and turns up the volume to paint a lush soundscape around his lyrics.

The big "but" of this album, however, is that because so many of the songs on the disc are quiet, moody ruminations on love lost and hearts broken, the record almost works better as a background soundtrack to our lives. It takes an unusual amount of attention to delve deep into what the tracks are saying before they rise above the collected whole of such a fully atmospheric album.

The previous statement is not, however, as much a criticism as an observation. There are few artists who can come so close to creating an ambient soundtrack to life, let alone a sterling song-by-song representation of it. Willson-Piper, thankfully, has done both. It just takes a little deep listening to realize this.

Andrew Strickman