The second album from Californian singer-songwriter Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg and his band – he got the nickname Avi Buffalo from his love of spicy chicken wings, apparently – is his self-confessed “tribute to the ballad”. It’s definitely a tribute to the heyday of US easy listening, the 1970s, as the now twenty-something band leader creates a record of jangly guitars and hummable melodies which hide far darker and more introspective soul-searching in the lyrics.
Take the absolutely gorgeous ‘Overwhelmed With Pride’. It begins with gently strummed acoustic guitar and a blissful, dreamy vocal, where Avi notes how “Lonely roads seem to follow me, these tunnels and seas”, and you think you have the song pegged as a poetical love-in. However, two lines in and it’s turned on its head, as he waxes egotistical about how “these birds seem so fucking free, they’re nothing compared to me”, while the melody soars and the horn section floats in from stage -left. Talk about confounding expectations!
Similarly, the fragile falsetto of ‘Memories Of You’ couches some pretty loaded lyrics: “Bitch, I’m on fire, you’ve got magnum desire/ I’m a cheeseball on fire ‘til the morning dew.” The Mercury Rev-esque surrealism of ‘Think It’s Gonna Happen Again’ has Avi eating dog-meat and talking to mirrors, while the acoustic soul-searching of ‘Two Cherished Understandings’ sees him explaining to the object of the song, “I know why you stalk the night.”
All the while, tracks like the sublime ‘So What’ and ‘Oxygen Tank’ channel the spirit of Carole King and James Taylor, alongside the ‘90s heyday of The Lemonheads, with the gorgeous production lending a warm sheen to proceedings, as Avi bares his naked heart. Then there’s the delicious piano ballad, ‘She Is Seventeen’, the pure power pop of ‘Found Blind’ and bittersweet closer, ‘Won’t Be Around No More’. As tributes go, this is pretty special.