Fine Print: Weinland’s Breaks In The Sun

Nitpicking a winner ...

Sometimes we sweat the small stuff. And sometimes bands don’t seem to mind when we do.

Since it saw the light of day in late April, we’ve been drinking up the new album by Weinland like a warm glass of milk. Breaks in the Sun is a quintessential Badman Recording Co. release: So intimate and unobtrusive that you’re lulled into lowering your guard and letting the sweet sounds take you over.

The songs seem spare enough, but the overall melodiousness actually masks what’s really going on: a short list of instruments bandying about includes dobro, pedal steel, melodica, mandolin and cello.

But at the very end of the record, following the cathartic “I Feel Wasted” and title track, the album concludes on a curious note (pun absolutely intended) on “Piano Hymn”: almost six minutes of a faint drum-bass kick and swipe of the drum brush.

We got to wondering what that was all about, so we reached out to Weinland main man Adam Shearer. He didn’t totally answer our question (and referred to himself in the third person Mary J. Blige style), but he was kind enough to give us some insight into the song:

” ‘Piano Hymn’ is a song about reconciliation. Its [sic] about the benefit and the toll of forgiving a loved one who has been untrue. Musically its [sic] an exciting song for us because Paul Christensen (piano) wrote the music and Adam Shearer (vocals) wrote the lyrics … making it the first 100% collaborative, from start to finish, songwriting experience for WEINLAND.”

Those lyrics:

“Close your eyes for winter, almost torn apart/ Cold and violent summer, that broke your heart/ We’ll lay down together/ Peace will have it’s [sic] cost. Barely hanging onto the way that it was/ Oh my marigold the way that you were/ It’s better to be for me.”

In addition to Shearer and Christensen, Weinland has three other members in their club: multi-instrumentalist Aaron “Rantz” Pomerantz, bassist Rory Brown and drummer Ian Cameron Lyles. The posse from Portland, Oregon, has three summer shows lined up in its hometown: July 11 at the deceptively named Mississippi Street Fair, and August 9 and September 9 at the Doug Fir Lounge. They also gots a gig at the Doe Bay Music Festival on Washington’s lovely San Juan Islands on August 15.

Case you can’t catch those shows - or hell, even if you can - here’s what the show will likely look like: