Devendra Banhart
What Will We Be

There's always been something disturbingly sad in Devendra Banhart's songs, and now it is clearer than ever.

Having reached his seventh album in his career, with now huge fame, which he has always tried to handle with irony, innocence, and a taste for the surreal, it seems that the Texan/Venezuelan singer-songwriter has now reached a pivotal point: either here or there. Either in the world of outcasts, crazy and starved dreamers like Daniel Johnston, or in the world of people who matter, fame, and radio-friendly versions, and I'm not sure if there are really any middle paths. Our hero has grown up and slipped into the latter world, the one we all like less, and there doesn't seem to be much to do about it. We won't hear "lend me your teeth" or other oddities anymore. It's always a bit sad when a child grows up and becomes a serious adult, marries, becomes boring, and stops rambling, but so be it. To put it as it is: this album is not worth much, despite the care in the arrangements, the still good quality of the songs (which, in reality, if there were more, but we always expect more from him. Where has he buried the crazy twin who wrote "Rejoicing in the Hands"?), and despite the limited number of songs, it's an album that at times bores, at times irritates, and which generally doesn't convince.

"What will we be" follows somewhat the path traced by "Cripple Crow" and "Smokey...", where a mélange of genres (tropicalism, folk, reggae, rock, ballads) blend together. It's a pity that here, the reinterpretations (even jazz ones, like in "Chin Chin and Muck Muck") are pretentious and sterile, some songs result from uninspired cut-ups (like "Rats", "Maria Leonza"), and others are frankly ugly ("Angelika"). To uplift the album, there are two beautiful seventies pop songs, in the style of the previous "Surfing" signed by Megapuss (which at least had the merit of frivolity and a wonderful back cover), "Baby" and "Goin' back at the place" and a very, very queer glam-disco (but who believes it? let's not kid ourselves!) that reminds one of MGMT's "16th & Valencia". The true (seriously) gems of the album are the two ectoplasmic ballads "First song for B" and "Last song for B", as unsettling as they are sweet, where it seems that we see again the artist who once was, the one who probably put too much of himself into what he made, and now doesn't have much left to show us.

There is no going back, and I wonder if there's a remedy for the gentrification, for the boredom and seriousness, that isn't too drastic...