Dolorean: Finding The Petty In Pretty

Sarah Jurado

Dolorean's "Country Clutter" captures the way a relationship's end can be irrevocably shot through with righteously vindictive anger.

Cee Lo Green's "F— You" may be the catchiest kiss-off song in years, but it's got an unlikely companion piece in "Country Clutter," from a forthcoming album by a massively worthy folk-pop underdog based in Portland, Ore. Dolorean, not to be confused with the Spanish dance-rock band Delorean, infuses its songs with weary woundedness, but it's not exactly taking the high road here: Amid the sweetest conceivable harmonies, singer Al James uses a gently shambling arrangement as a vehicle for a look back in venomous anger.

Taking place within days of a dysfunctional relationship's end, "Country Clutter" addresses years' worth of grievances in its first few lines before unleashing a positively brutal chorus: "I have moved out / Packed up my s— / If you find anything I left behind / well, you can have it / Let it clutter up your life / the way you cluttered up mine." To paraphrase, "I took my stuff. Goodbye. I hope anything I left behind is an inconvenience. Oh, and cram it."

As breakup songs go, it's striking how much harder-hitting "Country Clutter" is than a song like "F— You," which practically shouts its self-mocking self-pity through a megaphone. By contrast — by any measure, really — this is brutally potent stuff: As pretty as it is, the song captures the way a relationship's end can be irrevocably shot through with righteously vindictive anger. In theory, that sort of pettiness is never pretty, but "Country Clutter" sure is.