Marykate O'Neil - 1-800-Bankrupt

Genre rock Publisher Seventy-One Recordings External Links Official Marykate O'Neil Website Official Seventy-One Recordings Website

It's been rainy and gloomy for the past three days, which has served as the perfect backdrop in getting familiar with Marykate O'Neil's sophomore release 1-800-Bankrupt. The current play count is at 9 times through the album and I am just now recognizing the sheets of rain falling outside of Marykate's New York City apartment at the beginning and end of "Stay." It could be that I couldn't distinguish it from the rain hitting the pavement outside of my Chicago apartment all weekend but I think it has more to do with the subtle ambient production on the album that has me hearing new things each time through. The more I listen to this album the more I like it.

Marykate has penned thirteen songs on 1-800-Bankrupt that could have come straight out of any twenty-something's post-grad personal composition book filled with the hard luck subjects of breakups, layoffs, and lonely rainy days swallowed down in spoonfuls of codeine and swills of late-night wine. Stale, bitter, and worn out topics for sure, but all that rain and wine and codeine gets swirled up and blooms into something fresh and warm on 1-800-Bankrupt.

Marykate gets by with a little help from her friends. Jill Sobule ("I Kissed A Girl") and Roger Moutenot (Yo La Tengo) lend A+ production on the album and Matthew Caws of Nada Surf provides backing guitars, piano, and Wurlitzer. Add some mellotrone, organ, violin, vibraphone, omnichord, a toy piano, a toy drum, pots and pans, and a cardboard box are on the list of instruments making appearances. But 1-800-Bankrupt is no kitchen sink hootenanny. O'Neil's newest is never stripped raw or under mic'd nor squeaky clean or overproduced. It is a neatly balanced record with a variance of bluegrass, pop, rock, and ambience that flows beautifully through out.

Thematically, Marykate never feels comfortable with the way things are going for her on the album. On "I'm Ready For My Luck To Turn Around," she sells everything she owns in a yard sale and sheds all the black in her wardrobe, on "Remember The Year That We Were Normal," she loses her job and sells her car, and even when her luck finally turns for the better she embraces a downfall on "Things Are Too Good (They're Bound To Go Bad.)" A few creative snippets are pulled out of her writing journal. "Your stuff's where you left it/right before your grand exit/Diet Pepsi half-full in the fridge," she delicately sings over a line of television frequency on "Sleeping With My Clothes On."

O'Neil shows off her vocal range between pop-rocker cherry-flavored girl group choruses over Caws' bending, backing riff on "Things Are Too Good (They're Bound To Go Bad)" and the breathy violin-stringed video-single "Past All The Stars."

The album ends with "The Sky Is Falling," a hidden track tucked away after a few seconds of silence following the end of "You'll Be Sorry." "The Sky Is Falling," is every bit as worthy of being listed on the back of the album as the rest of the tracks. It is a gloomy, stark, and beautiful way to end the record. 1-800-Bankrupt may not be a world changing record but features plenty of nice, little songs to get you through a rainy weekend.

Maybe the rain will pass us by.