Dorks And Losers

Lang­horne Slim gets its name from the small Penn­syl­van­ian town that lead singer Sean Scol­nick grew up in. Lang­horne must be some place spe­cial since it inspired Scol­nick with a sunshine-filled attitude.

Okay, he might not be that rosy or happy, but on the third Lang­horne Slim album Be Set Free it’s hard to tell that Scol­nick feels any­thing but hope and faith. I don’t know if he’s a reli­gious man, but Scol­nick evokes the wis­dom of scrip­ture and dis­plays the rev­e­la­tory pow­ers of Billy Graham.

But to be fair, Lang­horne Slim is more cel­e­bra­tory in the vein of The Poly­phonic Spree than hym­nal akin to Char­lotte Church, espe­cially on the upbeat “Say Yes” which has raise-your-hands and flail-your-arms kind of vibe of Spree’s infec­tious “Light & Day.” Okay, Church is an incom­pa­ra­ble oppo­site, but Slim’s folk lyrics have the poten­tial to unleash sim­i­lar emo­tions that Church’s clas­si­cal and oper­atic num­bers could induce.

Slim sounds oddly spir­i­tual at times, but sur­pris­ingly he comes across as more lovesick and lovelorn than force­ful or preachy. The tear­jerker “I Love You, But Good­bye” is less spick-and-span than a James Blunt sin­gle, while the title track is more soul­ful and expres­sive than many R&B songs (“When you’re tired, and you’re torn / And humankind seems filled with mis­ery / Then you can, yes you can / You can be set free”). I’d imag­ine that either would play well as a cap­pella bal­lads, with the lat­ter being a pos­si­ble old school-style polit­i­cal cam­paign anthem.

I would be remiss if I didn’t men­tion the word gospel some­where. I fig­ured rev­e­la­tory, spir­i­tual, preachy, and Char­lotte Church would be enough, but it never hurts to state the obvious.

Lang­horne Slim’s Be Set Free has a con­sis­tent mix of gen­res and themes. The result is always a Slim sound that feels choral and mighty, yet aus­tere and pas­toral. It’s inter­est­ing to think that there could be accom­pa­ny­ing orches­tras and choirs on “For A Lit­tle While” or “Blown Your Mind” and the inti­macy or pas­sion wouldn’t be lost in scale or scope.

[photo via Crack­er­farm]
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Track list:

1. Back To The Wild
2. Say Yes
3. I Love You, But Good­bye
4. Land of Dreams
5. Cin­derella
6. Be Set Free
7. For A Lit­tle While
8. Sun­day By The Sea
9. Leav­ing My Love
10. Yer Wrong
11. Blown Your Mind
12. So Glad I’m Com­ing Home
13. Boots Boy

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