Mysteries Of Life – Focus On The Background [EP]
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Posted On November 1, 1997
The Mysteries Of Life’s 1996 RCA debut, Keep A Secret, was one of the year’s craftiest, most enthralling slices of pop, burrowing under the skin with arrangements dominated by insistently strummed guitars and evocative cello, all serving a brilliant set of original songs.
The new EP Focus On The Background is frustrating in the best possible way: Its four originals and two covers confirming the initial impression of this Bloomington, Indiana, band as the real deal, while leaving the listener begging for more. (Thankfully, now in the works is the band’s second RCA album, Come Clean.)
The Mysteries Of Life still are anchored by husband and wife Jake Smith and Freda Love, but there have been some changes, most notably Kenny Childers replacing Tina Barbieri on bass. Childers immediately earns his keep by contributing the driving “Shiver”, one of the disc’s standout cuts. But the beautifully sublime “Sight Unseen” may be the Mysteries’ finest moment yet. A paean to having faith in a lover, the song manages somehow to build a mood both soothing and tense. “I need you to believe in me, sight unseen,” Smith sings plaintively, as a perfectly understated guitar solo snakes out. Finally, he exults, “OK, I think you’re starting to see. It takes a leap of faith — take it with me.”
The Mysteries also turn in a fine version of Talking Heads’ “Naive Melody” and a stripped-down, slowed recasting of Herman’s Hermits’ “I’m Into Something Good”. Though the latter may seem like campy novelty, it has a surprisingly dignified grandeur when considered in context with the rest of this remarkable short-player.
