Album Review: The Black Watch – Weird Rooms

Hard as I try, I simply can’t keep up. John Andrew Fredrick isn’t only a fine songwriter and musician; he’s a staggeringly prolific one. Limiting the discussion to only releases fro The Black Watch from 2020 onward, there have been no less than three EPs and six albums. The latest among those is Weird Rooms. The lineup of the ever-changing group at present is Fredrick plus multi-instrumentalist and string arranger Misha Bullock, singer-musician Chandler Fredrick (John’s son) and backing vocalist Sara Mincavage-Bullock (Misha’s spouse).

And while it is indeed something of a challenge to digest the steady stream of music that flows form Fredrick, it’s well worth the effort. Weird Rooms is, we’re told, a concept LP of sorts. But as with any good conceptual work, the individual pieces of music must stand on their own as discrete pieces. And they do: “Myrmidion” feels a bit like “Dear Prudence” period Beatles crossed with Robyn Hitchcock, with a dollop of Paisley Underground for good measure. “Miles and Miles” offers shimmering feedback and a haunting, somnolent and shoegazey melody. “Gobbledegook” amps up the vibe, suggesting janglepop but somehow doing so without, er, jangle.

The interstitial tracks scattered throughout the disc aim for a The Who Sell Out feel, but they’re so short as to flutter by without much notice. Instead, it’s tunes like the title track that engage the listener and stick in the memory.

The aforementioned shoegaze character informs a great deal of the music on Weird Rooms. But it’s delivered in a way that leverages the strong melodicism at the core of Fredrick’s writing. The result is an album that washes over the listener but leaves them with actual catchy tunes to recall. The melancholy of “You’ll Get Over It” and “Would You Were Here” evokes a grey cloudy day with mist on the windows, albeit a day still worth experiencing. Sara Mincavage-Bullock’s sweet vocal harmonies recall prime-era Prefab Sprout.

The spaghetti western textures of “Fruit Stripe Gum” offer up a stylistic left turn to close the album, but it’s an enjoyable ride. The trumpet and marimba are nice touches as well, suggesting an indie rethink of Herb Alpert and his pals. The gonzo guitar lead in the song’s second half is as unexpected as the track itself, and ultimately offers an intriguing end to an endlessly engaging album.