Jenn Lindsay

A For Effort

(No Evil Star)

Record Review by Adam McKibbin

Jenn Lindsay falls in and out of love on A For Effort, her eighth album – and if that’s not enough fodder for material, she also considers substance abuse and goes looking for God.  Her music – which is associated with the loose “anti-folk” umbrella in NYC, a scene that has cultivated Regina Spektor and the Moldy Peaches, among others – is unadorned and straightforward.   Lindsay has expanded her instrumental repertoire over the years, but aside from the scattered flourishes, the songs on A For Effort are largely ready for translation to a solo show in a folk-friendly coffeehouse.   She pretty much plays everything and harmonizes with herself; even Bryant Moore, the only other person who picks up an instrument, is a multi-tasker (on bass and drums).

Lindsay’s albums are marked by her refreshingly guile-free perspective, and A For Effort keeps right in that tradition.  “I like the way you talk and the way you look at me,” she tells a suitor, not mincing words.  When things go bad, she takes the same approach:  “You should have what you need / Everything I gave is yours to keep / I want you happy even if it means letting go of me.”  Sometimes, though, the forthrightness feels a little too much like a first draft.  “I’m too awesome for you,” she tells a soon-to-be-ex-lover on the album opener – which, in case its target audience is a little slow on the uptake, is informatively titled “I Am Breaking Up With You.” 

In general, her hyper-personal songs are both her strength and her signature.  The album lags a little when she ventures away from this area; “Reasons to Quit” (the substance abuse song) takes its lyrics from a poem by “Cheryl B.” and comes across as a little preachy and a little awkward in its attempts at comedy (“Your beer goggles wear whiskey goggles”).  “No Foul, No Harm” returns to the personal, documenting a quest to find God – but falters when she summarily dismisses Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dannett as purveyors of a “line of dread” (a misrepresentation of atheism that Dawkins especially has skewered).

Her light, expressive vocal is well-suited to sprightly folk songs like “Kinda Guy” and “Paper.”  These are among the best tracks on A For Effort, and point to Lindsay’s growth as a songwriter; given its lo-fi nature and its limited cast of characters, the album does an admirable job of covering melodic and stylistic ground instead of staying stuck in a pleasant-but-forgettable rut.  She uses her vocal harmonies to poignant effect on the somber “Drag,” an ode to loneliness that foretells the even darker closer, “The Last One,” in which the protagonist entertains the thought of The End:  “I’ll be gone to ashes / In Brooklyn, Sierra Nevada / A dream as common as winter snow / What if I just let it go.”

A For Effort will likely (hopefully) go down as one of Lindsay’s most grim albums – even though it often sounds quite sweet and even upbeat.  It’s also among her best.