I’m at a place with music criticism where I’ve done it for enough times I know what elements I’m going to focus on pretty early into my listening. I used to think I was indifferent to lyrics—my feeling was whatever the singer wanted to sing about was his or her own business and trying to decipher its personal meaning was a fools’ errand. I still think that, but now I’ve grown to appreciate not what a singer is saying but how they say it. I thought about it all wrong, and luckily, when an album like Graham Wright’s comes along, I feel like I understand a whole new perspective. Tokyo Police Club’s keyboardist blazes the solo trails on Shirts vs Skins, a singer-songwriter power-pop affair. The record is a vehicle for the witticisms of Wright, who is fascinating with his words, both in good and quite bad ways.

Let’s first address the music, which is tertiary in Wright’s presentation. Save for a couple of outright acoustic songs, Shirts vs Skins is comprised of standard-issue power-pop. We’re talking slick poppy verses complete with punchy, hook-laden choruses. The instrumentation is nice but hardly nuanced or engaging. Nobody is going to listen to a Graham Wright song for a quick burst of brilliant musical clarity the way one might listen to Radiohead's “How to Disappear Completely” solely for the Ondes Martenot shrill. The music on Shirts vs Skins is basically background scenery for Wright’s lyrics. And notice, I don’t mention Wright’s voice, because really, his voice isn’t great either. Wright singing voice is very nondescript; it could be the voice of any power-popper anywhere. It’s clean and clearly enunciated, and overall, just kind of boring. So at this point, there’s nothing to cling to but his lyrics and his melodies.

As far as melodic ability, Wright has it in spades. He files off or extends phrases at will to complete sharp melodic turns. The hooks are thorough and tailor-made for sing-alongs. “Your Heart is My Heart” is Wright's melodic exhibition at its sharpest, albeit stripped of his preferred power-pop leanings for a softer twee-esque ballad. “Soviet Race” is the best power-pop example of Wright’s melodic phrasing ability; listen to the pacing of the verse and chorus, respectively, and you’ll hear how much importance the catchiness depends on each word landing where it does. No matter what I say about Graham Wright from here on out (or despite the things I’ve said before), this is a quality skill he possesses. For all of the facelessness in the music or his own voice, Wright does do one thing capable of distinguishing himself from the throngs of comps.

Lyrically, you can tell Wright is trying to cash his checks on this particular skill. His style is hell-bent on being clever, though at the risk of being pretentious, condescending, and kind of smug. It seems as if he’s trying to out-indie his indie fans. Initially, I was into his style. The lyrics in “Soviet Race” are off-the-cuff (“I read your book, it was pretty amusing, though it dragged in the middle and the end was confusing. I give it six points, out of a possible ten”), and I actually laughed at loud at the line he pulls off in “Leftovers” (“I fall asleep on the couch, and then I order Chinese. I probably ordered too much, but it’ll last for a week”). At first, it’s fun. I get what he’s doing. He’s largely tucking love songs and young adult emotional pangs inside of campy smarm. A lot of times (see the lyrics for “Leftovers”) he misdirects rhymes, skip them altogether, or drop words at odd times (the frank phrasing of “Chinese” comes to mind). The problem is twofold, which ultimately sinks the album otherwise brimming with promise.

I don’t ever want to try to get into an artist's head because it’s unfair to the artist to tell people what he or she was thinking at the time. But it seems as if, subconsciously of course, Wright wants us to know he’s clever. This is problem number one. On “Leftovers,” I’m fine with a wry smile inducing line about ordering Chinese food, but coming out of the chorus he goes right back to campy leftover food references. It’s all a cover-up for the narrator lamenting the fact his love has left, and he thinks she should come back, but so what? The song was derailed by two minutes of excess food talk, and my interest in his loneliness couldn’t be lower. Instead of turning the occasional clever phrase, Wright gets in his own way by trying to make almost every line something dripping with wit.

Problem number two is these songs don’t really say anything. When I said I didn’t care what an artist was saying, just how they said it, that was mostly true. But these songs are clearly designed to be little stories, though they don’t ever seem personal. Wright barely ever ponders beyond superficial teen crushes—fine, whatever—but he does so so impersonally, almost as if he creates little love song outlines and seeks to fill them only with his snarky remarks. Only “Your Heart is My Heart” and “Bird of a Feather” seem to mean anything to Wright, both twee ballads, presumably designed to be sweet. Though musically inoffensive (nor ingenious), Shirts vs Skins brims with hooks and an able frontman, but alas, it’s not that simple. Wright’s insincerity damningly illuminates the insecurity of his overreaching attempts at cleverness.

1. Chucklefucks
2. Heaven’s Just for Movie Makers
3. Soviet Race
4. Your Heart is My Heart
5. Leftovers
6. Keys to the Kingdom
7. Canadian Thanksgiving
8. Something Stupid
9. Potassium Blast
10. Evening Train from Kingston Station
11. Bird of a Feather
12. No Hard Feelings