Record review: The Grifters

James Goldsmith
Daily Staff

The Grifters

With their fourth full-length release, This Ain't My Lookout, The Grifters have pushed the artistic boundaries they established with their first album, So Happy Together, while creating melodies that are even more infectious than their last album, Crappin' You Negative.

So Happy Together laid the groundwork for most of what The Grifters would do musically, but it was by far their most difficult album to listen to. Bouncing between sonic soundscapes, meandering melodies, sparse, acoustic ramblings and pounding guitar riffs, the album is a masterful look at a truly schizophrenic songwriter. On the song "Tat," vocalist Tripp Lamkins jumps from singing a children's nursery rhyme, "Ring around the rosy/pocket full of posey," to screaming "Got you in my killing jar/ I hope you can't forget me."

By their third release, Crappin' You Negative, The Grifters had taken the sound they'd developed and made it much more palatable. They molded the more straightforward rock of their second album, One Sock Missing, into an intricate musical collage, incorporating the arty pop tendencies of Guided By Voices, the blues sensibilities of Red Red Meat, and the homegrown country feel of Uncle Tupelo. Like One Sock Missing, Crappin' You Negative isn't as musically innovative an album as So Happy Together, but the added sugar makes it much easier to swallow.

Ain't My Lookout accomplishes what The Grifters were trying to do with their first three albums - it's candy-coated throughout but still challenges you to listen to the music. The Grifters have returned to their schizophrenic roots, and Ain't My Lookout covers more musical ground than their last three albums combined. A venture through it will leave you wondering whether the same band is playing every track.

The Grifters set their sights high for this album, and have created an album that embodies their intelligent and often abstract artistic tendencies while remaining relatively easy to digest. Many great bands have tried to do that; most have failed. With Ain't My Lookout, The Grifters proved that it could be done, and in the process made their finest album to date.

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