Roommate

Songs the Animals Taught Us is an album populated with a vast array of characters, most of them American archetypes of the current Bush-era landscape: young, idealistic lovers who aren’t afraid to die; war profiteers; middle-class workers fretting about the economy; upper-class society "status hounds". Few artists have been willing to shine a light so candidly on modern America, but Kent Lambert (from Chicago, IL), doing business as Roommate, does so with aplomb.

Following in the lyrical footsteps of David Byrne, Roommate trains a quirky eye on life's minutia, using the mundane to explore larger issues, from war and the economy to social status and young love. Says Roommate, "I'd say it's largely about growing up — having to reconcile the utopian fantasies and bohemian ideals of your youth with the banalities and luxuries of middleclass American working life."

The album's centerpiece, "Typhoon," is perhaps most representative of the album's themes. Pictures are painted of celebrity tabloids and Biblical apocalypse, of history-makers burning the facts to print their own truth, of people crying in flooded lands. These images are juxtaposed with stark renderings of love, both spiritual and romantic. The closing lines seem to sum up the crux of Roommate's dilemma: "How much luxury would it take to kill me/and how much of your breath would it take to fill me/and how much love will save me?"

Possibly the most interesting inclusion on the album is Roommate's cover of Big Head Todd & The Monsters' "Dinner With Ivan." "I'd always thought the song had a lot of potential to transcend its Dire Straits-y blues jam origins," says Roommate, "and its lyrics of a working man despairing of his middle class routine seemed to reinforce the themes that were emerging from some of the other songs."

Roommate"s production draws on an eclectic array of influences, both past and present: The skewed pop of Xiu Xiu and Jens Lekman, the downhome instrumentation of Neil Young and The Band, the electronic flourishes of Broadcast and M83, the ethereal beauty of My Bloody Valentine and Cocteau Twins- all are adopted by Roommate and refracted through his own distinctive lens.

With "Songs the Animals Taught Us", Roommate brings us a new voice that is very much of its time yet somehow timeless in its appeal. He does not take the easy route of cynicism, instead choosing a more complicated perspective on the wonders, horrors, and contradictions of American culture. A sense of optimism pervades "Songs the Animal Taught Us", even at its darkest, and this seems to communicate the larger message of Roommate: Even in the depths of despair, there is always hope.