English Reviews

Weeklyvolcano.com
Officially, summer isn’t quite over yet. By my count we’ve still have 10 days left. The weather outside seems to support this fact, though we all know what’s coming. Football already fills the TV on Sundays, and in no time at all autumn colored leaves will be on the ground and temperatures will dip. Before we know it we’ll be in the midst of nine more months of rain. Either aware of this fact or oblivious to it — depending on how you look at it — Portland’s Pink Widower may have the answer. With the release of The Enchanted Realm of the Pink Widower, which will officially “drop” — as they say in the bizz — on Oct. 14, Pink Widower seems to be looking to hold off the drear and precipitation so common here in the Northwest with 10 tracks of sunny, breezy sonic goodness. While The Enchanted Realm won’t officially hit shelves until next month, a copy arrived here at Weekly Volcano World Headquarters sometime earlier this month. With the bite of fall only moments away, now seems like as good a time as any to give the disc a spin in my CD player and offer up a few words of review here on weeklyvolcano.com. Pink Widower is fronted by “the Jed,” a man and musician so respected he can put a “the” in front of his name without people scoffing. The Jed led Six Foot Sloth in a former musical life — a band known for melancholy musings and wrist cutting themes — but with Pink Widower the Jed seems intent on changing perceptions. Where Six Foot Sloth moped, Pink Widower dances — and the result is something far less depressing than the vibrations many have come to expect from the Jed. A medley of pop, psychedelic rock, horns and reggae, The Enchanted Realm of the Pink Widower (the band’s debut effort) is the perfect summer record — which either makes its mid October release an oversight of epic proportion or a well-planned distraction. On one hand, a summer record is best in the summer. That’s the rationale way to look at things, anyway. But then again — what better way to help the hordes of bundled and waterproofed music lovers here in the Northwest survive the bleakness of winter than by releasing a musical effort sure to make everyone forget just how cold and pissy it’ll be outside in mid-October when the disc sees the light of day?

Mastanmusic.com
Pink Widower, is the Jed's new band. The Jed is the former singer of Six Foot Sloth, and before that, Spurge. Their latest CD, "The Enchanted Realm of the Pink Widower" is out now on Portland's North Pole Records. The Enchanted Realm is a mix of danceable grooves and pop songs all centered around the Jed's flexible vocal stylings. The band also features the extremely talented Larry Yes.

Portland Mercury
Portland's Pink Widower will be celebrating the release of their excellent new album, The Enchanted Realm of the Pink Widower, by way of funk-anchored, sing-along indie pop. Throw in some horns and a clunky gypsy cloak, and enchantment seems like a fitting midweek emotion.

terrascope.co.uk
Displaying a skewed pop heart, “The Enchanted Realm of the Pink Widower”, is a sweet and tempting collection of songs from The Pink Widower. Reminiscent of Bands such as The Coral, Zutons, Super Furry Animals, there is a mischievous, playful streak running across the album augmented by some fine and precise playing allowing the songs to sparkle with joy.

Willamette Week
To hear Jed Allan talk about his new band, Pink Widower (“I want to write ‘get up’ music,” he says. “High-life music to move asses and inspire people”), you’d be forgiven for imagining the 31-year-old Portlander as a zonked-out hippie instead of a clear-headed, stylishly unkempt man enjoying kombucha and a cigarette on a late summer’s evening. The dichotomy is fitting for both Allan’s approach to writing songs for this new project and the loose-limbed yet locked-in style that his bandmates use throughout the one-year-old band’s debut album, The Enchanted Realm of the Pink Widower (North Pole Records). Many of the tracks feature a laconic reggae groove topped with a honking horn section, but have the clean, streamlined feel of a classic pop song. Others (the steady rumble of “Christmas Lights” and the uke and Rhodes piano-inflected “Let Me See”) take a path similar to that of the group Allan fronted for nine years, Six Foot Sloth. Although Allan understands the associations between and Pink Widower and Six Foot Sloth, he sees the new project as a move past what he deems the “morose” music SFS trucked in. “It was great for me at the time,” he says, “because in our lives, we had so much sad shit happen to us. So that’s what we were into: writing really sad ballads.” “I still write from a lost-love perspective,” he says, pointing to the shuffling track “Battledogs,” which contains the lines, “’Cause if my head stops working overtime/ That means our hearts won’t beat as one” as a key example. He is quick to mention, though, that “even if there’s dark stuff lyrically, there’s usually sun at the end.” If there’s any negatives with Pink Widower, in Allan’s view, it’s in trying to wrangle his bandmates together for shows, as all of them play in other groups (drummer Gilles and tenor sax player Amanda Mason Wiles with Rollerball, sax player Christine Denkewalter with the Evolutionary Jass Band, and trombonist Toussaint Perrault with Tu Fawning and solo project Babydollar$). Still, “I trust them so much to make the most of it,” he says. “It’s that kind of music that’s easy for people to fall into and get into it. It’s no sweat.”.

Willamette Week
The best pop records are the ones where things are less than stable. From Harry Nilsson’s Nilsson Schmilsson to Wilco’s Summerteeth, singer-songwriters have long paired upbeat music with heavy lyrical content. It’s easier to digest heartache and disdain with a good melody. It’s this juxtaposition between the infectious and the intimate that drives The Enchanted Realm of the Pink Widower. Led by songwriter Jed Allan (formerly of jangly rockers Six Foot Sloth), Pink Widower has released a debut record that’s an eclectic bunch of pop songs full of Allan’s wry, laconic voice and plenty of jaunty horns. “Motorcycle Mechanic,” with its ringing opening guitar strums and Allan’s plaintive vocals a few steps behind the mix, sounds like classic Kiwi rock (think the Clean or the Bats) while some of the more laid-back numbers recall, of all things, classic reggae. “If you ever feel that life is just a joke/ or you’ve heard every note 1,000 times before/ just remember that we’ve all had days like that,” Allan sings on the closing “Shiny Lies.” As our autumn days grow shorter, it’s good to have a record that doesn’t try to hide what it really is: A solid collection of catchy—and sad—pop songs.

inkoma.com
Pleasant bittersweet melodies, strong of a charming brass band, percussions, guitars, organ, and male vocals. A taste of ending Summer, suddenly turning Autumn. From Portland, members of Six Foot Sloth, Rollerball, Babydollars, - the mexican overture of trumpets in The Crimson Eye will drag You into a drunk party where suddenly you will feel sorry for yourself, moping around with a tequila and dancing a slow mariachi with the company of a scrubber. - Enjoy Yourself is going to stuck in your head since its first refrain, - totally infectious; - actually The Enchanted Realm of.. contains pop edges as Let Me See, something between The Beach Boys's effervescence and Grandaddy's eccentric style, as well as Motorcycle Mechanic, literally stolen from 70s, - lo-fi false start, fuzzy guitar solo; Elegant Rasta has got rich arrangements providing the finest frame for Jed Allan's sadhappy sung, gentle and sentimental. Battledogs is like a tropical bossanova (You could place this CD near to Three Mile Pilot's Another Desert, Another Sea on the shelf), a counterposition of lightness and melancholy, while Shiny Lies and Christmas Lights are schizophrenically reggae-related, a groove/disorder turning into psychedelia. - A blend of indie, tacos, and pop greatness.



Italian Reviews
inkoma.com
Piacevoli melodie agrodolci, forti di una sezione di ottoni, percussioni, chitarre, organo e voce. Un sapore dell'estate che finisce, e improvvisamente diventa autunno. Da Portland, membri di Six Foot Sloth, Rollerball, Babydollars, - l'apertura messicana delle trombe di The Crimson Eye Vi trascinano in una festa ubriaca dove improvvisamente Vi sentirete dispiaciuti per Voi stessi, e demoralizzati Vi riscoprirete a ballare un mariachi con uno scopettone bevendo tequila. - Enjoy Yourself poi Vi si fisserà in testa sin dal primo ritornello, - veramente contagioso, - e in effetti The Enchanted Realm of.. contiene anche qualche vetta pop quale Let Me See, qualcosa tra l'effervescenza dei Beach Boys e lo stile eccentrico dei Grandaddy, come anche quella Motorcycle Mechanic, veramente rubata agli anni 70, - falsa partenza e chiusura di assolo di chitarra su fuzz; Elegant Rasta ha dei ricchi arrangiamenti che procurano la miglior cornice al cantato mesto/divertito di Jed Allan, quale gentile e sentimentale. Battledogs è una tropicale bossanova (che Vi potrebbe far piazzare questo CD sulla mensola vicino all'Another Desert, Another Sea dei Three Mile Pilot), una contrapposizione di leggerezza e melanconia, mentre Shiny Lies e Christmas Lights sono schizzofrenicamente legate al reggae, un fascino/disordine che poi verge alla psichedelia. Una speciale mistura di indie, tacos, e grandezza pop, direi.

German Reviews
ox-fanzine.de
Eine Mischung aus Lee Perry und Morrissey, sagt das Promosheet und ich dachte: Oh, meine Güte, was kann das denn bitte sein? Und dann höre ich eine LoFi-Platte ganz im Sinne von Kimya Dawson oder PAVEMENT und bin positiv überrascht. Reggae-Anleihen sind definitiv vorhanden, aber in Maßen kann das sicherlich eine abwechslungsreiche Alternative sein. Außerdem unterstreicht es den sommerlichen Charakter von "The Enchanted Realm Of The Pink Widower".