Welcome to the Welcome Wagon

Sufjan Stevens is woefully behind on that whole 50-albums-about-50-states project he started a few years ago. He covered Michigan in 2003 and Illinois in ’05, but since then all we’ve heard, other than a Christmas box set (which I recommend--’tis the season!), was 2006’s Illinois outtakes, The Avalanche.

I, for one, have been getting impatient for more Sufjan, and now, finally, I have something to sate my need for Soof. No, there’s still no new release, but the Stevens-produced debut from the Welcome Wagon is a more-than-capable stand in ’till then.

The husband-wife team of Vito and Monique Aiuto form the band’s core, and like Stevens, much of the Aiutos’ music is biblically anchored, though more overtly in this case. Given Vito’s day job as pastor of a Presbyterian church in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (remember “Vito’s Ordination Song” on Michigan?), it’s not surprising. A few of the songs on Welcome to the Welcome Wagon are reworked versions of old spirituals, and the album cover and jacket are filled with dated, Precious Moments-evoking images. It’s purposefully campy and perhaps a bit ironic, but you get the feeling the couple is also sincere when the cover says, “May it help to comfort and sustain you.”

In the liner notes--written by Stevens, of course--he describes the Welcome Wagon as gospel music that is “refreshingly plain,” explaining that “it doesn’t impose its religious pitch on the listener with hyped up garnishes of sound; it merely conveys the deepest of convictions with the deadpan verdict of a surgeon.”

That’s pretty accurate. The Welcome Wagon manages to write gospel music that preaches without preachiness. Part of that’s the unadorned way in which the couple sings: Vito sounds astoundingly similar to Sufjan, and Monique’s voice is so childlike and dryly sweet that disliking it is akin to punching a puppy. The record’s charming, homespun vibe also plays a part in the band’s lack of pretense. The last song ends with Monique admitting, “Um, I screwed up twice.”

Old spirituals aren’t the only revamped source material here. The Auitos try their hand at the Smiths’ “Half a Person” and the Velvet Underground’s “Jesus,” and Daniel Smith (of Danielson) gets the songwriting credit for “Sold! To the Nice Rich Man.” It’s not surprisingly the most springy, near-danceable track.

Stevens’s fingerprints are all over the album, which makes sense, as he produced, recorded, engineered and mixed it, not to mention added vocals, banjo, bass, guitar, drums and on and on--more instruments than Vito and Monique combined. And in typical Sufjan fashion, some of the arrangements are overly ambitious (“I Am a Stranger”) and threaten to topple the “refreshingly plain” songs. But others, like the woozy marching-band romp of “You Made My Day,” are perfect.

So yes, it’s an album to tide you over till the next Sufjan Stevens outing, but it’s more than that, too. For me, that realization crystallized on the songs Vito wrote himself, like “American Legion.” At times it’s just Vito and a simple acoustic guitar recounting a somber memory. “If I’d been there I’d surely have stayed with you/ If I’d been there I’d surely have prayed for you, I want you to know,” he sings. It’s one of several moments where I realized this pastor and his wife are something special, with or without their friend with the funny first name.

Welcome to the Welcome Wagon is out Dec. 9 on Asthmatic Kitty Records.

mp3: The Welcome Wagon - Sold! To the Nice Rich Man