“Roger Ebert,” the first song on Clem Snide’s most recent record, 2020’s Forever Just Beyond, opens with a modest beat and twinkling piano before ringleader Eef Barzelay’s plaintive, ever-emotive voice delivers the following: “Did you know these were Roger Ebert’s dying words: It’s all an elaborate hoax.”
The very next song, “Don’t Bring No Ladder,” is another melancholic tune about death featuring this lyrical request/observation: “And if you could bury me naked/And if you could bury me deep/Believe that from the darkness something will emerge/We are forever on the verge of some hard truth.”
Yet Barzelay, as usual, lifts the heady proceedings with his wry sense of humor, distinctive vocal delivery and textured, easygoing musical arrangements that rarely rise above the practical. Forever Just Beyond, which was produced by and co-written with Scott Avett of The Avett Brothers, was the culmination of a challenging previous decade for Clem Snide. Barzelay founded the band as a trio out of Boston in the early 1990, and together they found success behind a playful, often rollicking songwriting style that pulled equally from Folk, Pop, Rock and Country, cresting with 2005’s excellent End of Love.
But by 2010, following a series of band-member defections and label and management issues, Barzelay was the last man standing. In an effort to support his wife and two small children, he became a songwriter for hire, eventually landing a gig as the voice of Chobani Greek yogurt. Then, in 2016, he noticed that The Avett Brothers covered a Clem Snide song, which eventually led to the collaboration with Scott Avett and the resulting new material. And now, after COVID-related delays, we finally have a solo tour featuring Barzelay armed with only his guitar and voice.
“I look up to Eef with total respect and admiration, and I hope to survive like he survives: with total love for the new and the unknown,” Avett said in press materials when Forever Just Beyond dropped. “Eef’s a crooner and an indie darling by sound and a mystic sage by depth. That’s not common, but it’s beautiful.”
Tuesday, Feb. 15 at the Southgate House Revival (111 E. Sixth St., Newport). Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are $15 advance and $18 day-of show. Masks are recommended, but not required. Tickets and more info: southgatehouse.com.
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