+/- {Plus/Minus}

Let's Build a Fire

(Absolutely Kosher)

Record Review by Michele Fair

If you were a music fan in the early 1990s, odds are you’re familiar with a band called Versus.  It was a few years ago that this hallmark band parted ways, and aside from Fontaine Toup’s solo venture, most people assumed the members of Versus had disappeared into the shadows.  Then came +/- {Plus/Minus}, the brainchild of Versus’ guitarist James Baluyut.  A few EPs and some scattered recognition later, +/- has released Let’s Build a Fire, a collective emotional work of beautifully simple songs that are more sincere than show.  Let’s Build a Fire begins with the title track, which starts off with a sound akin to a 1920s crooner album, scratchy record sounds in the background and all.  Then it explodes into a horn-laden, forceful entry that lets the listener know they are about to embark on a journey of some kind, although the itinerary is still TBA at this point.  When the second track, “Fadeout,” plays, it’s suddenly a whole new ballgame. The song seems to be 2/3 buildup, and 1/3 of a staggering crescendo that combines loud guitar with stark emotion.  The song is simply infectious.

Let’s Build a Fire speaks mostly of feeling, and less about objectivity or experience, but it does so with a great passion, and avoids being overly sappy.  “Thrown into the Fire” is a beautiful, male/female harmonized song with lush and gorgeous guitar that reminds everyone what it was like to be young and first discover that favorite album.  Lyrics like “it was pouring through high school headphones/it kept you company at the wheel” take us back to the days of laying on the bed and replaying those old vinyl records and cassettes, and then the song laments the fact that those days are gone: “all the magic/thrown into the fire.”  “Summer Dress 2 (Iodine)” is a beautiful ode to women who still hang on to hope with the men in their lives who treat them undeservedly.  The song’s vocals are expressed with a sincere sadness and then topped off with a layer of light piano, giving you a real visual of a girl truly lovelorn and confused.  +/- has also composed some darker tunes, like the keyboard-laden track “Time and Space” and “Profession,” which claims “but you won’t have me/hell is where I’ll be/alone, alone, they’re onto me.”  There isn’t one track on Let’s Build a Fire that doesn’t have its own personality and its own truth.  +/- is a band that offers up beautiful melodies coupled with sincere lyrics, and they are already out of the shadows whether we were paying attention or not.