Album Review | ‘You Could’ve Just Said That’ by The Davenports
The fifth album by this Brooklyn indie pop project looks within from the outside—and manages to relate to all
Scott Klass has been bringing the spirit of Brooklyn to the Davenports for years. Over the quarter century he’s been making music, his sonic boundaries have changed right along with the soundscape of the borough.
Band members have come and gone from the rotating Davenports caravan, including Dan Miller of They Might Be Giants and Eleanor Norton, who’s toured with Adele and Beyoncé. But Klass has remained the sole foundation throughout all their releases.
His fifth album, released January 31, You Could’ve Just Said That is one of his most authorial yet. The titular phrase’s casual, colloquial expression reflects its themes of communication — and, more often, miscommunication — in everyday life, all to the sounds of punchy garage rock and simple acoustic fringe.
Klass takes us on a tour of Brooklyn’s folk, rock, and indie scenes as if weaving through intimate, passing conversations inside Bushwick bars and Williamsburg living rooms alike to build a tapestry that captures the human experience.
It becomes all the more impressive to recall that it was all self-recorded, with Klass on nearly every instrument at some point in the album. You Could’ve Just Said That has Klass written all over it in every way.
Right from the opening track, cleverly starting the album with a song called “When Everything’s Over,” the infectious vibrations begin. A funky bassline, a playful harmony, and a kinetic drumline dotted with whimsical vibraslap overlay witticisms of analyzing family dynamics.
This first song sets a tone for YCJST that the Davenports carve out well: bright indie pop contrasted with Klass’s technique to use slices of life to explore mundane, sometimes slightly ill-at-ease moments for what they reveal about our societal interactions. The result is an aesthetic of curiosity, as this leading Davenport singer reflects on fleeting moments most of us might let pass by with an approachable sound and open perspective to look at things as if from the outside in.
“When I Tell You That I’m Sorry” pushes listeners to come face-to-face with the emptiness of the apology’s meaning in society’s conversations. Piano and guitar pair up to whirl into the climax of Klass’s rushing bridge and then draw out the final syllables of a resonant examination of how we exchange words.
The Davenports color outside the lines on their standard sheet music in this album, not afraid to choose notes and rhythms that the pattern-seeking brain wouldn’t predict. In some songs, Klass lets the words tumble over the sheet music’s end, tacking syllables on past the past few background instruments’ notes. This off-kilter method unsettles the listener from any perceived easy listening; YCJST subtly asks you to pay attention.
“I Am Lying” is the sister song to the album’s title track, with Klass’s refined gravelly rasp front and center. He brings us into the mind of someone struggling to tell their partner what they’re thinking, a prime example of his ability to make the listener feel like we’ve always been a fly on the wall of this vignette he’s painting for us, throwing out names of friends and running back dialogue of conversations past that suffer from concealed truths. Honeyed harmonies add a sheen of gloss to troubling lyrics like “call the horrors and the heartless out,” which makes their meaning stand out even more against the saccharine soundtrack.
The title track’s grungy folk then drives the anguish Klass feels with miscommunication putting up walls between people, from the other person’s perspective in “I am Lying.” The steel pedal accents the pangs of wistfulness in pensive lyrics like “there are already a million reasons to worry, in a time that keeps deleting beauty left and right.”
Each song features a different version of Klass. The intricate ornamentation of a folk singer, sometimes turning breathy, nasal, or smooth. Several of his songs experiment with removing most of the background instrumentation, allowing his voice and lyrics to speak for themselves.
“We’re Talking About You” has swirls of upbeat funk rock, with forays up into falsetto, playful “hey’s,” and a groove-heavy retro bassline. “Full Length Mirror” evokes a bluesy, melancholic down-home atmosphere, stemming from a real-life experience centered on a mirror that blossomed into a metaphor for an incomplete window into self-reflection. The guitar is the uniting focal point in these differently styled tracks. Orchestral strings, electric guitar, and shakers are among other instruments that all find a place in the album.
“Annabellas of the World” drips in childlike nostalgia, singing of “Day-Glo kites” while smooth vocals glide into some “Hey Jude”-esque Na-Nas, sweet and carefree in nature. “While you curl in the corner,” Klass sings, Annabella’s are the type to meet the world at its stochastic tendencies and harvest the nonsensical into a source of naive joy. The chorus’s marked downward tilt from major to minor key works even further in Davenports’ favor to contrast the opposing perspectives in the song.
Like Annabella, Davenports uses specific names and situations that make us feel like we have been in his head with him all our lives. In “If You Put Me Next to Patti,” he wrestles with the anxiety of having to potentially run into a former connection and the heartache that would cause him to “lie awake all night,” agonizingly ruminating if he should mention this to the host to avoid the situation entirely. Later, in “I’m Not Going to Bother You” he brings everyone’s inner insecure monologue to life from the vantage of a person who feels shunted aside by their partner.
In micro junctures like these, we excruciatingly relate to the sentiments Davenports draws out and chooses to dwell on. These are the moments we might not know exactly what to make of or how to talk about (or might not want to), but Klass’s dissection of such common feelings makes us confront them in a cajoling way.
“We Know We Want To” ends the album on a somber note, consistent with its theme of scrutinizing life’s small moments for what they mean in the grand scheme. Klass’s voice is so earnest in this track that the reminiscent joy laced with the pain of two peoples’ emotions diverging and ultimately passing each other by is tangible.
Davenports’ production is remarkably sleek for a self-produced work at home. Its simplicity allows it to let the instruments stand out. The songs sound balanced and full, with the occasional reminder of a project not completely glossed over by leaving natural sounds like fingers sliding up guitar strings. It achieves the effect of an intimate living room concert of sorts.
For the casual listener, YCJST plays from start to finish as a leisurely album filled with pleasing harmonies and humble guitar riffs punctuating most indie folk. But the lyrics contrast the lulling sounds by digging deep into the emotions we all face. Klass has said this is The Davenports’s “most authentic and cohesive” work yet. In cultivating his own pinnacle sound, Klass has created a listening experience that makes us consider our authentic selves just the same.
The Davenports will debut “You Could’ve Just Said That” live at Heaven Can Wait in New York on February 3, 2025.
