Baltimore isn’t exactly a renowned city, but Private Eleanor could be with their fourth album of nu-gaze harmonies, Sweethearting.In general, the best-known children of Charm City are less famous than infamous, (Spiro Agnew, John Waters, and David Hasslehoff), or found their success elsewhere (Babe Ruth, David Byrne, and Nancy Pelosi). But this quintet has stayed true and sweet, though perhaps a little too sweet.
Sweethearting as a whole is pretty and flowing, but that does mean individual tracks have trouble catching the ear. The record has great beats and nice guitars, but possibly not enough guitars – in this case, more wouldn’t be too much of a good thing. The emotion of singers Marian Glebes and Austin Stahl comes through clearly and effectively, though on some of the higher numbers, songwriter Stahl’s voice gets a little flat, and on some of the lower ones, the tracks drag a bit. While generally a relatively slow tempo record, the higher-tempo numbers perhaps shine a bit brighter.
In the end, two tracks really stand out: “Vladimir and Gabriel” and “This Year I’m Going To See the Sun”. “Vladimir” has the melodic flow that is Sweethearting’s signature, but goes too high, with the vocals especially suffering, and comes off as a lesser version of the atmospherically pretty first track, “Two By Two”. The penultimate “This Year”, on the other hand, comes off as a better version of the opener, with stronger guitars and vocals married to the nice beats of “Two” and melodic flow of Sweethearting.
Baltimore might be home to the only politician who could make Nixon look good and The “Don’t you know who I am?!?” Hoff, but it also can claim such born & bred excellence as poet Edgar Allen Poe and HBO’s critically acclaimed series, The Wire. And Private Eleanor definitely falls on the finer side of the city. Sweethearting could use a little more variety and guitar, and Austin Stahl is better at songwriting than he is at singing, but there’s definitely a place for Private Eleanor in today’s indie army.
-Jean Anderson
