Jason Lytle / Department Of Disappearance

Jason Lytle
Department Of Disappearance
(Anti-)
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The old saying goes that you wait half an hour for a bus then two arrive at once, well that logic now works for Jason Lytle’s music output. First there was the news that the brilliant Grandaddy have reformed and now the news that Jason Lytle’s next solo album ‘Department of Disappearance’ has arrived.

The enigmatic Lytle is the brains behind Grandaddy and there’s plenty of evidence here that he has lost none of his songwriting abilities. Lytle’s penchant for experimentation and incorporating new sounds are all over ‘DOD’. ‘Get Up And Go’ is a chugging acoustic pop-nugget that gets lifted by trademark keyboard spasms and ‘Young Saints’ irregular rhythm is menacing yet majestic and is constructed with the same panache as an architect at the top of their game. The standout track is the scintillating ‘Your Final Setting Sun’, a 5 minute drama of Lytle’s brain that chases you like Javier Bardem in ‘No Country For Old Men’.

Lytle describes the album best himself by saying that some tracks are ‘strange and peculiar’ and a few are ‘conventional’ but those ones take care of the weird ones. What that means is there’s plenty for everyone to like here but ‘Department Of Disappearance’ works best as a whole and when you do it’s simply wonderful.
Luke Mckenzie