Cast Spells – Bright Works and Baton

Album Reviews • Friday August 7th, 2009 • 9:21 am

Side projects are a tricky thing for a member of a fairly successful band to get involved with. One doesn’t want to linger too close to the sound of one’s original band (see Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s numerous and similarly progged-out Mars Volta side projects), but also doesn’t want to diverge to far from what one is know for and have the side project seem like an insincere affectation. Fortunately, Maps and Atlases’ Dave Davison walks the line well on the Bright Works and Baton EP under his Cast Spells moniker.

Cast Spells replaces Maps and Atlases mathy morse-code guitar lines and dynamic drumming with good ol’ fashioned chords, restrained percussion, and the tinkling of glockenspiel and toy piano. But Maps and Atlases is, at heart, a pop band, and Cast Spells feels as though it’s simply Davison putting on a neglected outfit from his own closet rather than him coming home from the mall with a totally new look. The song structures are simple, but like Maps and Atlases, don’t resort to a simple verse-chorus-verse format. “American Quilts” achieves in its two minutes and sixteen seconds a build, apex, and denouement, with a surplus of great melodies.

And although none of Bright Works’ six songs broach three minutes they spare no expense in arrangement or lyrical content. Mind you, these aren’t overstuffed by any means. Davison has a talent for knowing just what to give the song. He allows the focus to remain on his unique I’ve-got-a-bit-of-a-cold-but-I’ll-still-sing-for-you voice and his poetically ambiguous lyrics (see “Then we’ll listen to the chatter of our inner architecture” or “And while conversing with clouds/ We spoke of far too loud/ Got swept beneath the mower blades of the paralyzed old plow”).

Davison has established a vocabulary for Cast Spells that could easily sustain the project over the span of a couple albums, one that while doesn’t break ground or blow minds, but rather offers up a solid and personal interpretation of pop music.