Frank Bango

The Sweet Songs Of Decay (Sincere Recordings)

By Christine Werthman
Published: August 2nd, 2008 | 9:00am

Frank Bango has a thing for nature and its creatures. His album The Sweet Songs Of Decay opens and closes with chirping birds, and the environmental influences creep through most of his 13 songs — whether he sings about the rain or introduces a song with the sound of flies buzzing. It is fitting then that he and co-lyricist Richy Vesecky make songs that match the description of natural, more so because they delve into life’s basics than because of the occasional animal noises.

Bango has a fresh and lively sound that contains a Sesame Street-like cheeriness, weighted down with a melancholic twist. His songs often explode with optimism, which could not be the easiest emotion to pull off for an artist who remains relatively hidden — despite having been in the music business for 14 years and on his fourth full release. Bango’s voice hints at an Elvis Costello influence, particularly on the track “Worm Was Wood,” when he gets into the higher vocal ranges. Bango is a skilled lyricist, and he excels at painting pictures: On “Angela Eagleton,” Bango sings of a girl from his past, sitting shyly in the back of a classroom, drawing pictures that would be defaced by her schoolmates. He laments never being bold enough to greet her, and wonders where she might be now — a common question for anyone thinking back on a bully or an outcast.

Bango’s album touches on other subjects: like the war, plane crashes, and a creepy patient-lusting-for-caretaker moment on “Don’t Be a Shy Nurse,” but songs of the Earth are his best. “I Saw the Size Of the World” has Bango crawling out of the dirt and exploring his surroundings, and his chorus, “I cried when I saw the size of the world / It’s not so sad / It’s just so beautiful,” neatly sums up the album’s optimistic innocence, despite sorrow.

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