LOCH LOMOND, Paper The Walls (Hush Records)

[October 3rd, 2007] [CHAMBER FOLK] If you’ve only recently stumbled on the quiet wonder that is Portland’s Loch Lomond, the folk ensemble’s sprawling chamber enchantments might seem like they sprung fully formed out of songwriter Ritchie Young’s skull. But go back and listen to the band’s 2003 debut, When We Were Mountains. What are those drum machines doing in there?

When We Were Mountains sounds like the bedroom-cut demos Young might use to mark out parts for his current accompanists, who seem to multiply with every effort. And 2006’s Lament for Children EP is like a post-Mountains sampler; it’s Loch Lomond born again as a chamber act—old tyme melodies laden with strings. Both albums are totally different beasts from new release Paper the Walls.

Listening to Paper the Walls is like watching a season go by in a Disney-esque time lapse. Album opener “Carl Sagan” starts like sunrise in early summer, and when Young starts to sing, “Carl Sagan’s calm attitude/ Things are going well, friends coming home” in his duplicitous feminine falsetto, that’s exactly how it feels—like weather hinting toward glorious for the first time in months and your friends migrating home from school. The sentiment remains familiar throughout the album—many of the songs have a similar build, coming and going like a new and different day, passing time like an elusive sun shifting through clouds.

It’s not all days and nights, though: “A Warning (All Your Friends Are Smiling)” is a short, pastoral instrumental, and “Scabs on This Year” appears as a strange standout; the liner notes credit Ritchie’s younger brother Dillon as co-songwriter, which explains why it sounds a bit like the Young brothers’ other band, Foureveryoung—complete with phrases like “astral projection” sung in Foureveryoung’s signature round. “All Your Friends Are Smiling,” on the other hand, features a full chorus, and it gives the imaginary season Paper the Walls evokes just as lovely a close as its opening suggests. And hiding in the latter half of the album is “Stripe II,” a re-recording of one of those demo-esque tracks from Mountains, neatly closing the circle of Loch Lomond’s checkered past—and highlighting the talent at its core.