It would have been nice if St. Louis-popsters Prune had included a family tree in the liner notes of its debut album Partly Sunny. There are brothers, husbands, wives and friends among this five-piece band, and space does not allow for all of the details.
So if Prune’s harmonies sound a bit too natural, perhaps it can be attributed to genetics.
Along with Prune’s family ties, the band also has roots in some of St. Louis’ finest rock and pop acts of the past decade. Beginning with the more aggressive college rock of Give Her a Lizard, various members have played with the girl-pop combo Mr. Pink Jeans and acoustic wonderboys Lydia’s Trumpet.
Prune crafts some of the finest low-key pop around. Think of a cross between a Midwestern Belle & Sebastian and a non-neurotic Stephin Merritt side project, and you’re close to Prune’s sound. It is relaxing music that is also exciting because it is of such high quality and is being produced so close to home.
Critics of St. Louis’ often-unremarkable music scene would do well to pick up a copy of Partly Sunny.
The album opens with “Summertime,” a song that encapsulates the excitement and agony that summer love promises. It is musically as sweet and sour as the subject matter; “ba-ba-ba” background vocals are offset by Wally Schwartz’s melancholy guitar lines.
There is a certain communal feel to Prune’s sound; there is no lead singer, no virtuoso soloists, only solid harmonies and artful arrangements behind lyrics that are simultaneously carefully crafted and emotionally universal.
Such is the case with “Must Have Misread,” a fractured lullaby that contains one of Prune’s best, if most heart-breaking, lines. “You were the only star in my night sky/ I took one look and I never thought twice/ Now I wish I may, I wish I might,” are the kind of lyrics to which the listener can, if somewhat reluctantly, become attached.
Prune’s sound stays pretty constant throughout Partly Sunny; the songs are based around piano and clean guitar. What is special about Prune is its ability to take these simple elements and create music that can be at once atmospheric and heartfelt. Guitarist Bill Michalski said that the band has a unique, quiet sound that “would more bore an audience than annoy.”
While Prune has delivered a superb first album, they are best experienced in concert. Aside from its own respectable catalogue, the five members have perhaps the broadest musical vocabulary of any band giggling around town. Songs by Jonathan Richman, the Kinks and an unashamedly joyful version of the one-hit wonder “Dancing in the Moonlight” are regulars in Prune’s sets.
One recent show found the set-closing original “Why Do I” injected with pieces of Destiny’s Child’s “Independent Women pt. 1” and Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind.”
This marriage of new pop and soft rock isn’t surprising from a band that considers Billy Joel to be as important an influence as The Beatles.
Partly Sunny succeeds in part because it is short without being brief and varied without being incoherent. It also succeeds because good songwriting, simple accompaniment and soaring harmonies will never go out of style.
If you have lost faith in the spirit of honest, undiluted pop music, do yourself a favor and catch Prune. You might be converted.
