Stephen Steinbrink watched my face get violently smashed into my girlfriend’s face two months ago at a show, and as my upper lip began to swell and gently ooze blood onto my front teeth, he asked me, “Whoa, dude, are you alright?” So, full disclosure: I see Stephen Steinbrink around town. I run into him at shows, around burrito places. I think I once borrowed his guitar at a gig. But I’d be hesitant to say that I know Stephen Steinbrink, because the man is a quiet one. When we talk, it’s brief. He seems aloof, maybe even distant.
That’s of little consequence, because Ugly Unknowns, his debut under his given name (his previous deluge of singles, EPs, CD-Rs, and full-lengths were issued under the name French Quarter) is communication enough. Steinbrink has the ability of songwriters twice his age; he can’t legally buy a fifth of whiskey, but can tear hearts out, and each two- or three-minute pop conjures up the image of a discarded Polaroid, existing as both a singular document of one specific moment and a fading, timeless artifact. "I left my home exhausted," he sings over a bed of intertwining, softly plucked electric guitars in opener “Breath of Fire,” and it almost feels like the line is unnecessary; he could coo nonsense syllables and the idea would be conveyed.
Steinbrink’s bedroom pop is stylistically nuanced, swiftly moving from the placid lull of the first track to something more menacing on “Overpassing,” a song that’s appeared in different forms on other French Quarter releases. "So fuck the inquisition/ And fuck your complacent life/ ’Cause I can’t love you like a husband/ I can’t love you like a wife," he sings before letting loose an overdriven riff on loan from Crazy Horse. Steinbrink’s twin secret weapons are his guitar playing and voice. Plenty of singer/songwriters are content to strum and whine, but Steinbrink gets inside the chords, finger-picking counter melodies and leads, while his voice is a unique statement, at once high and lonesome, like Neil Young, but fully present and compressed. On tracks like “Huachuca City,” his voice cuts through hissy noise, while on “In Six Days,” there’s precious little going on other than his words, multi-tracked over quiet guitars.
Ugly Unknowns never falls trap to sameness. The title track utilizes a curiously funky, head-nodding groove. “On Sleeping” brings to mind late ’60s pop, with its reedy organ line and shuffling rhythm, and describes a state of displacement: "I will take off my clothes/ And go to bed/ I think that I’m home enough." “When It’s Easier” is a real triumph, a tiny blast of subdued power-pop, marrying sun-drenched melodies with obtuse lines like "And I walk through your room/ Just cause I know where it is/ And I storm through your tomb/ Just cause I know it exists." The guitars slip and slide, and the chorus climbs a beautiful ascending melody: "Well who am I/ To tell a lie/ Fucked and tired." These little surprises — the juxtaposition of beat-down lyricism and sing-along pep, the jagged, anti-guitar solos — keep the album from falling into familiar cycles of self-absorbed, sad kid rock.
The album ends with two “I Don’t Want” numbers, “I Don’t Want to Get Stabbed” and “I Don’t Ever Want to Die.” The former rides a sunny wave, with a glorious fuzz guitar bridge and plunking electric piano, telling a tale of walking home through dangerous downtown Phoenix, where "The crackheads steal and hurters hurt." The closing track starts with just Steinbrink, voice and acoustic guitar, before a full backing of drums, keys, and bass come in to help deliver the chorus, "I don’t ever ever want to die/ To truly feel alone/ Tto truly have no home." The song ties the theme of the record together: the wanderlust that develops as a young man tours constantly, that develops as a young man gets older. The search for a place to call your own or at least a place that feels right. Steinbrink might not have found that place, but at least in the documenting of his search, he’s created something like it within the warm confines of his own record.
1. Breath of Fire
2. Overpassing
3. South of 13th
4. Huachuca City
5. In Six Days
6. My Best Intent
7. Ugly Unknowns
8. On Sleeping
9. When It’s Easier
10. I Don’t Want to Get Stabbed
11. I Don’t Ever Want to Die
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