Pete Yorn - Back and Fourth

Genre alternative Publisher Columbia External Links

It’s really quite amazing that Pete Yorn has a career, much less sustained one for almost an entire decade. It’s strange, considering he probably hasn’t had an across the board hit since “For Nancy” in 2001. 

How does he do it? The answer is quite simple: He’s a solid songwriter. However, ‘solid’, and ‘good’ are not relative, in this case. 

Back and Fourth, the - yep, you guessed it - fourth disc from Yorn is another collection of sleepy eyed ballads and jangle-pop rockers that he’s doled out since 2001’s Musicforthemorningafter. 

“Don’t Wanna Cry”, a melancholy ballad, kicks off the record rather awkwardly.  It’s too slow and delicate to be the album’s first single. The lyrics “I don’t wanna cry for you/there’s nothing left to do” sounds sort of trite, and the background singers plaintively saying “Make me feel better” just make Yorn sound kind of whiny. 

The following track, “Paradise Cove” seems like it’s named after a water park. This song, like the one before it, is numbingly middle-of-the-road. At points, it sounds like it may swell into an outright rocker, but instead stays within it’s precious boundaries as a ballad. 

It’s not until “Shotgun” does the record finally show some signs of a pulse. With a big chorus, string section and triumphant guitar strums, Yorn seems to sound excited with the material on this disc for the first time. It may find some space on adult contemporary radio if his label plays their cards right. 

Yorn first came to prominence after soundtracking movies like “Me, Myself & Irene”. It’s not surprising, because most of the songs on this disc sound like romcom trailer music. It’s designed to have some vapid emotional impact for a very short time - fifteen to thirty seconds in hopes to sell a movie to an audience. 

Here’s an analogy: Back and Fourth is like vanilla ice cream. It’s plain. Sometimes it helps to add toppings - in Yorn’s case, sprinkling a few guest spots, or maybe some exotic instrumentation. Without those toppings, like anything vanilla, there’s nothing memorable about it after it’s gone.