Pitchfork

In the whiskey wake of last year's Donkey Stock EP, British quintet Absentee extend their louche Silver Jews twang and lush 1960s pop shuffle to Schmotime, a debut album of deceptively vulnerable songs about banging, boozing, and the weird bootleg chemistry of the whole boy/girl/bed gestalt. Beerlight punk'd baritone Dan Michaelson undermines his macho-ironist pose with subtle sissydom which, along with sharp tunes and still sharper wit, creates a tension that makes Schmotime more than just another indie-country-rock moper.

Absentee would gladly let you believe that Michaelson's a Hemingway-grade misogynist asshole, down to un-British drunken drawl. "Will you be there/ If I leave her for you?" he ponders on opener "More Troubles", gutted by guitarist Babak Ganjei's barbed Malkmusisms. But drummer Jon Chandler kicks in with the "Be My Baby" beat, horns waft woozy with Spectorian grandeur, and all of a sudden the dude's hair might as well be emo-cut. Michaelson fronts even bigger on "We Should Never Have Children"-- "Some people never should have met," he explains-- but kids actually sing in the background, so haha. Riotous single "Something to Bang" scores the chicks out of 10 and gets an 8 for sloppy effort. "I'm an animal/ And you're an animal, too," Michaelson cunningly reminds on "Weasel".

Imagine peeling off David Berman's beard and finding Stuart fey Murdoch. If feelings are taken as weakness signs, that's just another reason men drink, but Michaelson's got a surprisingly decent bead on his feminine side. "I'm tired of being a man," Michaelson admits moments before ogling some boobage. Feminine sidewoman Melinda Bronstein edges off his macho bluster with graceful backing vocals, as if the girl-group rhythms weren't enough. "You Try Sober" tries on Loretta Lynn's nightie (don't come home a-drinkin', hon), while "Duck Train" finds Michaelson imploring, "You're the only one I want." By closer "Treacle" Absentee are waxing silly on the infinite sweetness of love, but check the title.

Much of Schmotime reenacts one of the oldest farces in the mating game: the sensitive man's misguided attempts to come off dickhead to get women. In the meantime, the buoyant brass and plaintive pop shine through the cigarette-cloud bar-howdy, even if the arrangements occasionally melt together in the haze, and "Truth is Stranger Than Fishin'" is as tenuous as it sounds. Dark humor gets through his deep-down scared-shitlessness; on the remarkable "There's a Body in a Car Somewhere", he imagines the police taking samples of his dead lover's teeth and hair. Unsure whether to laugh or cry, Michaelson wonders: "Is it not enough to have lived and to have loved?" I'll get back to you on that.