Iron & Wine - Ghost on Ghost

Iron & Wine - Ghost on Ghost

4AD, 2013
7.5/10

Right from the moment his lo-fi debut crackled through the speakers, it was clear that Sam Beam was an artist to watch. The mastermind behind modern folk outfit Iron & Wine, Beam had a gift for gorgeous melodies and evocative lyricism that was nearly unparalleled in the musical landscape of the early 2000s. And as his public profile began to gather more attention, his music only got better. A year after the debut (2002’s The Creek Drank the Cradle), Beam blessed the world with the album that, I think, still remains his defining moment: Our Endless Numbered Days, a gorgeous, poetic, and blissfully nostalgic album of acoustic campfire tunes. Anyone listening to Beam at the time, to gentle, unforgettable tunes like “Naked as we Came” or “Passing Afternoon,” or especially to the nine-and-a-half minute b-side that was “The Trapeze Swinger,” could tell that he wasn’t just another pretender to the folkie throne. No, Beam had a way with sweet and wistful melodies that made his music sound timeless, and his use of astounding lyrical imagery showed that he not only had what it took to become one of the most skilled songwriters of all time, but that he was probably already among their ranks.

As such, Beam would have been betraying himself and his fans if he had chosen to stand still. Rather than stagnate in the acoustic singer/songwriter vein for too long, he became more ambitious on his third full-length—2007’s The Shepherd’s Dog—outfitting his beautiful songwriting with full-band arrangements, studio sheen, world music influences, and fuller sonic textures than ever before, and the results were surprisingly stellar. On that particular record, Beam was somehow able to maintain the intimacy of his songwriting style while simultaneously giving it new perspective and punch, and his reward was the most well-received album he had ever made. Encouraged by the strong critical reception, Beam used The Shepherd's Dog as a launching pad for a complete musical metamorphosis, but looking back, he seems to have lost his compass somewhere along the way.

To be fair, 2011’s Kiss Each Other Clean did continue the evolution of its predecessor, but where the fuller sound of Shepherd’s Dog felt like a natural step forward, Kiss was overindulgent and inconsistent. Impossibly great stand-outs like “Walking Far From Home” and “Godless Brother in Love” still made the record a worthwhile journey, and hearing Beam adopt elements of jazz, funk, and ‘70s FM pop was hardly unwelcome, but the record’s mixed-up, directionless flow, as well as the presence of a few legitimately poor songs, had myself and many other fans questioning the songwriter’s creative direction. The Iron & Wine concert I went to at the time did nothing to assuage my doubts, either: Beam and his band transformed his songs, new and old, into extensive and meandering improv pieces, and while the musicianship on display was never less than terrific, the jam band I was watching onstage was neither the artist I had come to see, nor the one I had fallen in love with.

Ghost on Ghost, Beam’s fifth full-length outing under the Iron & Wine moniker, is at once both better and worse than its predecessor. On one hand, the album feels considerably more cohesive, both in sound and sequencing, than Kiss ever did. On the other, the number of immediate stand-out tracks—for me at least—has dropped to zero. And perhaps that’s by design, since the more beloved Iron & Wine songs have always seemed to be the acoustic ballads—stuff like “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” and “Resurrection Fern” from Shepherd’s Dog, or “Upward Over the Mountain from Creek—of which this album has none. Instead, Beam wanders further from his roots than ever before, building a dizzying array of ‘70s radio pop, Motown soul, ‘50s doo-wop, and throwback jazz club intensity, with fringes of Americana folk and western country music thrown into the mix as reference points.

Make no mistake, there’s a lot to take in here, and with so much to hear and admire, it’s not really fair to compare these songs to the guy Sam Beam used to be. As a standalone, I bet most of us would be praising Ghost on Ghost, both for how fresh it sounds in the modern musical context and for how reverent and referential it is to a wider historical tapestry. Lively opener “Caught in the Briars” melds a booming bass-line, bursts of brass, and twinkling glockenspiel with the kind of warm vocal harmonies and acoustic riffs that could have fit on any of the last three Iron & Wine albums, while the seductive “Desert Babbler” is a neo-soul slowdance with memory-laden pedal steel accents. The resplendent “Joy” is almost as impressive, a dreamy, reverb-laced latticework of vocal harmony, piano, and acoustic guitar that wouldn’t be out of place next to “Blue Moon” on a “Summer Nights” playlist. Later, the chaotic, jazzed-up first single—“Lovers’ Revolution”—shows off the same kind of furious crescendo that Beam used to close an album last time around. And the actual closer, the piano-led beauty that is “Baby Center Stage,” continues Beam’s tradition for terrific finales, leaving listeners awash in flowing falsetto and climactic keyboard chords as the final seconds of the record tick by.

But the problem with Ghost on Ghost is that many of those seconds seem to pass with little fanfare. Kiss, for all its disjointed flow, was hard to forget after even a few listens. It was equal parts adventurous and traditional, and the balance between different sounds—the electronic flourishes of “Walking Far From Home” and the radiant piano of “Godless Brother,” for example, or the big band feel “Big Burned Hand” and the disorienting structure of “Fake Name”—kept listeners on their toes. Ghost on Ghost is the smooth jazz, NPR-ready version of Iron & Wine, and while that kind of sound allows for a lot of really lovely moments, it also means that the album as a whole kind of drags and blends together. If you get lost somewhere in the mid-section, amongst the mid-tempo grooves, the two to three-and-a-half minute song lengths, and the cryptic titles (could songs with names like “Grace for Saints and Ramblers” or “Singers and the Endless Song” be written by anyone but Sam Beam?), you’re probably not alone. And even when the album delivers a great moment—like the Fleetwood Mac-esque “New Mexico’s New Breeze”—the magic from the old days is mostly gone.

Back when Sam Beam was first gaining popularity, listeners flocked to his music because his delicate vocal delivery and his transcendent way with words made him unique. Those early songs were raw, real, and exposed, and Beam had this wonderful ability to sound both wise beyond his years and unspeakably melancholy at the same time. When I hear bits and pieces of the earlier Iron & Wine material—“Some days, her shape in the doorway” from “Fever Dream,” “Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made” from “Passing Afternoon,” “That season left the world and then returned, and now you're lit up by the city” from “The Trapeze Swinger”—they still have the power to stop me in my tracks. Maybe it’s simply the beauty of the words, the gentle caress of the acoustic guitar, or the intimate sadness in Beam’s voice as he delivers them, but something about those songs is inescapable. Now, he sings in a more full-bodied baritone, his voice surrounded by layers of harmony, studio sheen, and auxiliary instrumentation, and even though he might still deliver shards of his grand old poetry—couplets like “I only lie when they don’t want the truth/I’m only frightened ‘cause you finally gave me something to lose” caught my ear right away—it never feels as striking or vital as it used to be.

I like this record. I liked Kiss Each Other Clean, too. But for me at least, in drifting slowly away from his folk roots and in shifting his songwriting from sparse acoustic hymns to fully-orchestrated, production-heavy pieces, Beam has lost or obscured many of the qualities that made him special in the first place. In whisper mode, Beam’s voice was the most subtle and devastating instrument in folk music; now, it blooms with new confidence and range and remarkable falsetto coloring, but the subtlety and delicate beauty is lost. Furthermore, by bending his primary focus from the lyrical to the musical aspects of his craft, one of the greatest poets of our time has unwittingly handicapped his greatest gift. I respect the hell out of Beam and the vision he is following here, and I truly adore moments of the result, but for the most part, Ghost on Ghost is a good record that disappoints because we know its creator is capable of something more powerful.

Abandoned Pools - Sublime Currency

Abandoned Pools - Sublime Currency
Tooth & Nail Records, 2012
3.5 stars 

"In the fabric of a very long enchantment

Will you wake me up from long sleep

You were my reflection

In a world abandoned

I will stitch back up our memories"

Writing the most gorgeous song of the year normally guarantees an artist and their album a spot on my year-end list, even if bits and pieces of that album don’t quite live up to it’s peak. Last year, Iron & Wine’s Kiss Each Other Clean shifted back and forth between disappointment and triumph for me, but I also invariably found myself coming back to “Godless Brother in Love,” the album’s stunning highlight. Abandoned Pools (the moniker for singer/songwriter Tommy Walter) reaches a similar level of dreamy opulence on “From Long Sleep,” the penultimate track from his first album in seven years. Introduced by a wistful burn of steel guitar, the song builds into an resplendent duet between Walter and female singer/songwriter Paris Carney, and the result is magical. Occasionally, a song comes along that feels like a flight of the soul and this is absolutely one of them; there is no more obvious autumn soundtrack staple this year.

The rest of Sublime Currency, the third full-length from Walter’s project and the first since 2005, doesn’t quite reach those stratospheric heights, but that’s not to say there aren’t other worthwhile moments. Take the neon-drenched opening trio, a trifecta of glorious pop songs that evoke ‘80s arena rock and hair metal (“Sublime Currency”), make fascinating sonic decisions (“Hype is the Enemy”), or showcase heavenly vocal harmonies (“Unrehearsed”)—all against a backdrop of indelible choruses. Walter’s synth-heavy, new wave-inspired sound works perfectly in more conventional song structures like these ones, constructing webs of gorgeous, full-bodied texture that demand to serve as soundtrack for a nighttime drive. The record is slightly less successful when it reaches beyond its indie-pop groundings towards something more experimental. Meandering compositions like “In Silence” (a striking song about marriage) and the anticlimactic closer “In Shadows” (“From Long Sleep” is a perilously tough act to follow) display Walter’s knack for creating mood music, but don’t touch the euphoric heights of the record’s best songs.

But for listeners who have followed this scene for awhile, for those of us who have spent the last decade delving into every record we could get our hands on, there is a lot to love about Sublime Currency. Walter writes songs that are full of feeling and nostalgia, often recalling the work of artists who came before him (or those who were his label mates at Tooth & Nail the last time he made an album). “Autopilot” plays out like Beneath Medicine Trees-era Copeland, complete with a spiraling electric guitar outro to recall “California,” that album’s centerpiece cut. “Legionnaire,” one of the record’s darker, more challenging moments, wouldn’t have been out of place on a Mae record. And don’t be surprised if the aforementioned slices of new wave transport you back to the ‘80s revival that took place in 2004, to how it felt the first time a record like The Killers’ Hot Fuss came cascading out of your speakers and filled your room with synthesizers.

Make no mistake, Sublime Currency has a lot of musical sides to it: from M83-esque atmospherics to an alt-country duet that wouldn’t be out of place on a Civil Wars record, Walter covers an awful lot of musical ground here, and that versatility should be commended. That said, not all of his sides work: the second half is, for the most part, messy and self-indulgent. Some listeners will be able to get blissfully lost in the plethora of musical textures, but others will be left scratching their heads at the album’s scatterbrained intentions and bizarre left turns. Undoubtedly, Sublime Currency is at its best when at its most conventional, when Walter lets his pure melodies (and his magnetic voice) do the heavy lifting. When he lets his one-man-band showmanship cloud the arrangements, the display is a fascinating exhibition of talent, but one that also causes its songwriter to lose sight of the core qualities of his compositions. The end result is a record that feels distinctly like it was written in pieces over a long period of time rather than in one inspirational burst of creativity. And that’s fine: what else can we expect from a songwriter who we haven’t heard from in seven years? But one can’t help but wonder what would happen if Walter could (or would) channel the yearning emotion of his best songs, stuff like “From Long Sleep” here, or “Goodbye Song” from his sophomore record Armed to the Teeth, into a single cohesive record. He may not always hit the bullseye on Sublime Currency, but when he is at the top of his game, few are better.

"We wait for kingdom come with the radio on": The Gaslight Anthem Live in Detroit

The Gaslight Anthem
Live at St. Andrews Hall, Detroit, MI
September 14th, 2012

(Check this out over at AbsolutePunk.net as well)

Disclaimer: This is going to be long.

The last time I saw a show at Detroit’s St. Andrew’s Hall, it was 2006: I was 15 years old, lining up for my first real concert, and temperatures had been hovering around 100 degrees all day. Needless to say, the heatwave turned that small and cramped club into a sauna, and I left the building soaked in sweat, smelling worse than anyone has the right to, and dehydrated to a dire state. But the night was legendary: I saw Butch Walker, one of my first and foremost musical heroes, give a show full of raucous antics and emotional intensity that cut through the heat and straight to the core of me. I’ve been to a lot of shows since then, big and small, from stadiums and arenas to the smallest clubs in Michigan, but that first one still has a spark about it that takes me back: my brother’s best friend making a wrong turn and ending up in some shady back alley (in Detroit, this is not a good thing); some homeless guy named Papa Smurf (who later ended up in the pages of Sports Illustrated) trying to bum a few bucks; the opening acts, which included a pre-fame Boys Like Girls and an energetic southern-rock act called As Fast As; Butch’s back-up singers spraying the crowd with hoses; and yes, one of the best setlists and shows I’ve seen by the guy who plays club shows better than anyone.

Perhaps it’s appropriate that my first appointment with the Gaslight Anthem bore a lot of similarities to that show. Over the past few years, Brian Fallon has slowly wormed his way into the ranks of my favorite frontmen in rock ‘n’ roll, and Gaslight’s latest, Handwritten, is likely to take the top spot on my album of the year list. In the time I’ve been a fan, it’s also become a joke of sorts between my brother and I that Fallon was never going to come back to Michigan. We missed out on his visits in 2010, in support of the band’s third album American Slang, and he’s spent most of the intervening years touring Europe, both with Gaslight and side-project The Horrible Crowes. When dates finally started coming out for the Handwritten tour, we were further disappointed by the fact that the band would be supporting Rise Against (along with rockers Hot Water Music) rather than going it alone. The tour included a Grand Rapids date, a short drive for both of us, but the prospect of paying double or triple our usual ticket price to see Gaslight play 12 or 13 songs didn’t seem too appealing.

Then, finally, our prayers were answered. Rise Against was taking a night off on the Friday before that GR show, and Gaslight and Hot Water Music each decided to do one-off tour dates in Detroit. So it was that my brother and I ended up in St. Andrew’s Hall, a sold out crowd swelling around us, waiting for Fallon and company to take the stage. Doors opened at 8, and with the stage already bedecked in Gaslight regalia, it was fairly clear that there was no opening act tonight. No nonsense, straight-to-the-point: the way Springsteen does it and the way I like it.

It was 9 p.m. on the dot when the band took the stage. Opener “Boomboxes and Dictionaries,” the lead-off track from the 2007 debut Sink or Swim announced two things: first, that this was going to be a concert of deep cuts and old songs, meant for the die-hard fans, and second, that the St. Andrew’s Hall sound set-up was abysmal. Fallon’s vocals were far too low in the mix, to the point where anyone unfamiliar with the songs would have had a hell of a time figuring out what he was singing about. The blend was messy at best, sacrificing clarity for sheer volume, and as the show went on, Alex Rosamilia’s lead guitar lines seemed to get sharper and sharper. All of these problems were consistent ones, a shame because the band played one hell of a setlist. Still, the atmosphere was electric, with a crowd full of people who clearly loved this band and these songs as much as I did, and with sing/shout along sessions that rocked the very foundations of the place. While I went back and forth on whether or not the trade-off was an even one (more on that later), The Gaslight Anthem didn’t disappoint.

The best songs in the setlist, almost unanimously, were those culled from the band’s latest record. Call it whatever you like, but the band was clearly the most at home with their latter-day material, and songs like “Howl,” “45,” and “Handwritten” set a high-water mark very early on in the night. That’s not to say that their earlier work fell flat, though. Classics from their 2008 album, The ’59 Sound, formed the backbone of the set, and the inclusions of “Even Cowgirls Get The Blues,” “Meet Me By The River’s Edge,” “The Patient Ferris Wheel,” “Film Noir,” and “The ’59 Sound” all gave way to triumphant sing-alongs. Speaking of those, “Keepsake” was a set highlight, with a skyscraping chorus that rang through the venue like a battle cry, and “American Slang” scorched like the anthem it is, with its massive guitar riff and yet another fist pumping hook.

But the poor quality of the sound definitely took its toll on what was otherwise a nearly spotless performance. I’ve often thought that I would like the songs from Sink or Swim a lot more if they were recorded now. The fidelity of the original recordings makes them sound like demos, but the actual songs are masterful, with more punk edge than the ones from The ’59 Sound, but very obviously cut from the same nostalgic cloth. With five of the album’s 12 songs represented here (“Boomboxes,” “Wooderson,” “Angry Johnny and the Radio,” “1930,” and “We Came to Dance”), this should have been a perfect opportunity to see those songs reborn. Unfortunately, the fuzzy and muddy sound production lent them nothing new, and while they were still fun, welcome additions to the set (especially the last two, which the band pulled out as the show entered its final act), they did not end as highlights for me. Furthermore, I don’t know if Alex Rosamilia was having an off night in general or if he just couldn’t hear his own instrument (I wouldn’t blame him), but the guitar solos were off-the-mark and strangely ineffective for most of the concert. They ranged from too quiet (the riffs on songs like “Keepsake” and “Mulholland Drive,” moments that define those songs on record but were almost inconsequential here) to sloppy and out-of-tune (the sweeping transitions in “Mae,” which disappointed live after being one of my favorite songs they’ve ever written). It was a bizarre and unfortunate enigma for the band member who really makes Handwritten what it is, and I didn’t quite know how to take it.

But overall, the great moments far outweighed the disappointments. American Slang highlight “The Queen of Lower Chelsea” was a definite treat, slowing down the tempo for a subdued moment late in the main set. Handwritten b-side “Blue Dahlia,” with its rousing chorus and perfect bridge, got the live feature I never thought it would. And finally seeing “The Backseat” live, as the first curtain call, was as euphoric and emotionally visceral as I always knew it would be. There are moments from every live show I’ve been too that I will remember for the rest of my life: looking around me as the house lights went up during “Born to Run” at my first Springsteen show and seeing the ranks of the Palace of Auburn Hills rising around me, all of us screaming along at the top of our lungs; the opening guitar riff of “Where the Streets Have No Name” echoing through a flawless summer night at Spartan Stadium a week or two before the end of U2’s 360 tour; Butch Walker gesturing to my brother and I to help him down into the audience at one of the concerts where we had ended up front and center. Belting along with “The Backseat,” shouting about how “we rode the fever out of Austin” and “dreamed of California lights,” was absolutely up there, and I realized that, ultimately, my complaints about the sound and about how Rosamilia’s guitar didn’t sound quite as pitch-perfect as it does on record didn’t really matter at all. This show was all about the atmosphere: it was about the electricity of the crowd, about the gleeful performance from the band we all loved, and about the setlist that traveled to every corner of their discography. It was about rediscovering the power of rock ‘n’ roll, and I didn’t want that last song to end because I just wanted to keep on cherishing it.

Luckily, that wasn’t the last song. Not by a long shot.

After much racket from the crowd, The Gaslight Anthem re-took the stage and rocketed into a pair of ‘90s covers (Pearl Jam’s “State of Love and Trust” and Nirvana’s “Sliver”). While I don’t particularly care for either song, the band was visibly passionate about both and Brian especially looked like he was having a ball with them. “Biloxi Parish,” despite being considered by some as one of the weaker points of Handwritten was nothing short of potent and transcendent here, resulting in one of my favorite moments of the set. And “Blue Jeans and White T-Shirts” provided a note of emotional weight and solemnity to an encore that was otherwise about big, brash rock songs. It certainly doesn’t hurt that it’s one of the best and most enduring things that Fallon has written to date.

I’ve seen artists skimp on the encore a lot of times before. A year and a half ago, Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam brought my disappointment in his live show full-circle by doing a cop out, one-song encore that wasn’t “The Trapeze Swinger.” Ryan Adams took intimacy to a new height during his show at the Ann Arbor Folk Festival last winter, but left it feeling truncated and unfinished when he departed the stage after “Come Pick Me Up” and didn’t come back. The best shows are the ones with the artists who just keep going, the ones who come back for “one more song” three or four times and act like they never want to leave the stage. Bruce Springsteen is famous for this, and on Friday night, Brian Fallon and the guys in the Gaslight Anthem channeled that stamina in spades. The house lights didn’t go up after the band’s second departure, and even though many of my fellow audience members started moving towards the exits, I was holding onto hope that they still had a little more to give. Lo and behold, after copious amounts of shouting, screaming, clapping, and stomping, the boys were back onstage one more time, for that elusive second encore.

As I mentioned before, the band kicked off their final stand with a pair of Sink or Swim songs (“1930” and “We Came to Dance”), both of which crackled with the same energy and force that they had been channeling all night. “The Diamond Church Street Choir” took one of the evening’s few trips into American Slang territory (suffice to say that I could have done with a few more), and “Here’s Looking At You, Kid” functioned in much the same way as “Blue Jeans” had – as a gorgeous, sobering torch song. When the guitar riff for ’59 Sound opener “Great Expectations” echoed through the hall, there seemed to be an agreement of sorts between the band and the audience that this was the grand finale, and both parties acted accordingly. The crowd surged forward, transforming the venue’s floor into a riotous mosh pit. In situations like this, you have no choice but to give yourself over to the insanity of it all, to go with the ebb and flow of the crowd, hang on for dear life, and hope you don’t die. But one last explosive, sweaty, communal sing-along was just what the set needed to send it off, and even though I didn’t get my choice for a closer (the latest single “Here Comes My Man,” which was surprisingly absent from the set), you can’t complain too much with a song as good as “Expectations.”

At two hours and 29 songs, with a pair encores and more memorable moments than I can possibly expound upon here, Friday night’s gig was the longest show The Gaslight Anthem have played all year. It was longer than the Handwritten album release show or any of the concerts they played in Europe. It was certainly more sprawling than all of their supporting dates with Rise Against and Hot Water Music, past or future, or any of the slots they played on the festival circuit. It was also a textbook example of the age-old rock ‘n’ roll show agreement between a performer and their audience: the band gave fans an epic marathon show that covered deep cuts and greatest hits alike, and in turn, we gave them a chance to let loose, have fun, and own the room like the rock stars they deserve to be. Five years into their career, The Gaslight Anthem are already building a legacy of great songs, better albums, and evocative classic rock traditions, and their live shows follow suit with all of that. Had the sound in St. Andrew’s Hall be a bit better, I might have been ready to proclaim this concert as one of the greatest I had ever seen; even with that, though, it’s still pretty damn close, and that’s worth an awful lot.

Setlist

1. Boomboxes and Dictionaries
2. American Slang
3. Howl
4. Even Cowgirls Get The Blues
5. 45
6. Handwritten
7. Wherefore Art Thou, Elvis?
8. Wooderson
9. Meet Me By The River's Edge
10. Keep Sake
11. Angry Johnny and the Radio (with Brand New - Jesus Christ tag)
12. The Patient Ferris Wheel
13. The '59 Sound
14. Film Noir
15. Senor and the Queen
16. Blue Dahlia
17. The Queen of Lower Chelsea
18. Mulholland Drive
19. Mae
20. The Backseat

Encore

21. State of Love and Trust (Pearl Jam cover)
22. Silver (Nirvana Cover)
23. Biloxi Parish
24. Blue Jeans and White T-Shirts

Second Encore

25. 1930
26. We Came to Dance
27. The Diamond Church Street Choir
28. Here's Looking At You, Kid
29. Great Expectations

Sleepy Turtles - Summer, Hither

Sleepy Turtles - Summer, Hither

Autumn + Colour Records, 2012

3.5 Stars

Fans of modern folk acts like Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, and My Morning Jacket, take note. Summer, Hither, a new EP from the Atlanta-based (and amusingly named) Sleepy Turtles. Right from the first song, the harmony-drenched title track, it's clear that these guys owe a lot to similar bands who have blazed a similar trail in recent years. But while their sound may not be terribly distinctive, it's still as appealing as ever, and Summer, Hither, standing at a short-but-sweet five tracks and twenty minutes, is a more than promising career-starter. The harmonies prove to be the norm throughout the EP, surrounding frontman Dylan Higgins' soft and welcoming croon with a sweet swell of sonic bliss. The instrumentation adds another dimension, with softly strummed acoustics, nostalgic banjo plucking, and occasional flourishes of electric and steel guitar. Mostly though, Summer, Hither plays things straight, offering up five quick (and stupendously enjoyable) tracks of traditional folk that straddles the line between Americana and Appalachian heritage.

But that's not to call the Sleepy Turtles limited. Where the first three tracks dwell in a similar sunsoaked, acoustic vein (befitting the album's title), "Reason to Hope" throws a wrench into the machine, twisting in a haunting and apocalyptic web that is certain to enrapture many a listener. Higgins sounds like a cross between Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody and modern folk hero Sam Beam here, and the song's evocative and elegiac plucking wouldn't have been out of place on an early Iron & Wine album: it's an instant highlight, but then, with five tracks this good, nothing falls out of context. Closer "Being Small" kicks off in a decidedly simpler and gentler vein, just a single guitar and Higgins' voice, before the song begins to build. Mandolin strokes add subtly to the texture as an ensemble of singers begins to gather around the song's melody. Drums and handclaps enter only seconds later, with competing vocal lines combining for a communal and classic folk sound that ends only just as the song is nearing sublime territory. It's a jarring finale to a musical project that, from the first song, feels like it should be a piece of something larger. And perhaps it will be: with the massive popularity that their influences have gained in recent years, perhaps the Sleepy Turtles will be able to make an impression: they certainly have the talent.

There's not a lot else to say here: these guys do what they do and they do it very well. There's not a weak song in the bunch, and, despite the fact that the collection never adds up to something greater than the sum of its parts (I find that EPs rarely do, for me), that's hardly a mark against its pleasant, dusky lilt. Higgins is a collection of his idols, sounding like a clone of Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold at the start, and hitting upon shades of guys like Dallas Greene (City & Colour) and William Fitzsimmons before ultimately settling on Iron & Wine for the final two tracks. But while Sleepy Turtles don't really make an attempt to strike out on their own or reinvent the wheel like Bon Iver did last summer, the songs are good enough for it not to matter, and any folk fan should be more than willing to spend the twenty minutes it will take to check these guys out. Sleepy Turtles are a band to watch for on the folk horizon, and I am excited to see where they go from here. If the near-epic ambition that "Reason to Hope" hints at is anything to go by, this is a band who would be far more at home in a full album setting, with room for their arrangements to expand and their songs to breathe. If given that opportunity (preferably sooner rather than later), I think they could have something really breathtaking to offer; I'll be keeping close tabs on them to see if they can make good on that promise.

The Tallest Man On Earth - There's No Leaving Now

The Tallest Man On Earth - There's No Leaving Now

Dead Oceans, 2012

Three and a half stars

There's always been a tendency in music criticism to compare new artists to classic ones, but in the past decade, that furor has increased with every new association. Nearly every review of The Gaslight Anthem's breakthrough album (2008's The '59 Sound) heralded Brian Fallon as the new Springsteen, and some people - a lot of people, actually - were seriously ready to crown Justin Timberlake the new "King of Pop" when he made FutureSex/LoveSounds in 2006. Amidst those and countless other examples, perhaps the most common parallel drawn was between the modern folkies, eager to prove themselves, and the granddaddy of their genre: Bob Dylan himself. Over the course of the last ten years, we've had a slew of "new Dylans," from Conor Oberst to Josh Ritter to Iron & Wine's Sam Beam, but never has the comparison been so spot on as it is when used in reference to Swedish-born troubadour Kristian Matsson and his moniker, The Tallest Man on Earth. With a pair of full-lengths and two EPs under his belt, Matsson's weather worn, nasal vocals, his ever-present acoustic guitar, and his lyrical songwriting have consistently evoked the sounds and aesthetics of Dylan's '60s folk. His terrific 2010 release, The Wild Hunt, could have easily fit alongside Dylan's early records, somewhere between The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and The Times They Are A-Changin', and even though he added some flourishes of electric guitar on Sometimes the Blues is Just a Passing Bird, the EP he released that same year, the overall sound and feeling of his music still fit in that same niche.

But Dylan was a visionary: he got bored with the limitations of folk music and consciously tore them down a mere three years into his career. Figures like that only come along once or twice in any given musical generation, and Matsson clearly prescribes more to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach. There's No Leaving Now is a blend of the propulsive folk of The Wild Hunt and the more gentle atmospherics of Passing Bird, and while Matsson does move to multi-tracking here in order to add a bit more sonic variation into the palette (the title track is a piano ballad, reminiscent of "Kids on the Run" from the last record, while accents of pedal steel drift through many of the album's best moments), almost any of these songs could have fit on his past albums. That's not entirely a bad thing, since most of them are really quite good, but some fans may be disappointed that Matsson doesn't take a few more chances this time around. That said, opener "To Just Grow Away" is a tremendous reminder of Matsson's talent, both as a songwriter and as one of the most distinctive vocalists of his age, and it's the perfect reintroduction to his brand of predictable but pleasing folk music. The song bursts with lush orchestration and melodic splendor, and carries within it a welcoming familiarity, something that even this record's weakest songs manage to hold.

On initial listens, There's No Leaving Now comes across as an exceptionally gorgeous and charming record, just not a terribly memorable one. As often seems to happen with modern folk albums, there isn't enough variation in tempo or melodic structure here, and the songs end up blending together a bit as a result. "Revelation Blues," "Leading Me Now" and "1904," narrowly escape that fate, with good melodies and terrific vocals that save them from the fact that they share essential musical and structural qualities, but the elegiac "Bright Lanterns" elevates the proceedings noticeably. A pedal steel guitar formulates a stunning alt-country backdrop as Matsson's vocals rise and crack with emotional strain and nostalgic regret, and the result is a summer night song for the ages. The should-be-penultimate number, "Wind and Walls," is even better, offering up a slice of the more upbeat texture that made The Wild Hunt so indelible and giving Matsson one of his most affecting vocal moments on the bridge. The album loses its way a bit after that though, stumbling through the borderline-maudlin "Little Brother" and fumbling completely on the senselessly dull "Criminals," a pair of songs that derail the album's flow and render the sequencing questionable.

When The Wild Hunt closed with "Kids on the Run," it was a revelatory left turn for a guy who mostly just played in his comfort zone. Matsson traded his acoustic guitar for an out-of-tune piano, but the imperfection didn't matter: he banged on the keys and delivered a power ballad, and for a moment, it sounded like The Tallest Man on Earth could be more than a reliably solid (but not terribly interesting) folk act. A similar thing happens this time around with the haunting "On Every Page," which gives Matsson's top-notch guitar work one of its best displays on record. The song sounds completely raw and real, like he just sat down in his bedroom, pushed record, and it on the spot, and it's got the same kind of entrancing, wisdom-laced vocal delivery that Dylan had in spades. Again, it makes me wonder if there's more to Matsson as a songwriter and a musician than he puts on his records, but the difference this time around is that the set of songs that precedes it isn't that great. Matsson has always come across as a fairly limited songwriter, but the songs on The Wild Hunt were good enough, and more notably, had enough life in them to overcome that fact. There's No Leaving Now has a lot of great moments, but it also meanders and drags through a series of compositions that, while not necessarily bad, don't really stick out. Perhaps it's the kind of album that needs to be heard in a certain environment, or one that requires the listener to be in a specific mood (when I listened to it on a sweltering late night drive, I fell in love with every note I heard), but on the whole, I just think Matsson's formula is beginning to get old. There's No Leaving Now is still a good album, and may even make it onto my year-end list, but for next time around, I hope Matsson takes a leaf out of Dylan's book and slashes the boundaries that are holding him back.

Bruce Springsteen Retrospective Part VI: Nebraska (1982)

Now I been lookin' for a job but it's hard to find
Down here it's just winners and losers
And don't get caught on the wrong side of that line
Well I'm tired of comin' out on the losin' end
So honey last night I met this guy and I'm gonna do a little favor for him 

Well I guess everything dies, baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City

Following a week's residency on Jimmy Fallon, Bruce Springsteen will drop his much anticipated 17th studio record tomorrow. Wrecking Ball (which I have already reviewed, over at rockfreaks.net!), is the best album Bruce has released since Born in the U.S.A., I think, and I found myself wavering between giving it a 9.5 and a perfect 10. Only time will tell if I'll be pleased with my choice of the former, but check out the review (I got offered to write for Rock Freaks in response to my review of fun.'s Some Nights). Also, stay tuned for more in depth thoughts on the record's songs and their stories here, probably sometime in the next week, but perhaps even further down the road, when I finally get through this Springsteen retrospective project. Anyway, since it's a big week for Bruce, I figured I'd try to knock out a few more of his records here, so without further ado, I give you his 1982 masterpiece Nebraska.

Immediately, Nebraska is strikingly different than anything Springsteen had ever done before (and anything he's done since, despite numerous attempts to replicate it's successes). Legend has it that, after his first top 10 hit with The River's "Hungry Heart," Springsteen retreated. While The River gave him his first taste of success in the mainstream pop music world, it was "Stolen Car," a dark, sparse, hopelessly sad storyteller piece, that would serve as the biggest indicator of where he was going when he sat down in his bedroom and recorded the Nebraska demos on a 4-track recorder. Later, Springsteen and the E-Street Band convened to record the material (I'd kill to get my hands on this version of the record), but something was lacking in the full band arrangements, and Bruce ultimately decided to release the tape he'd been "carryin' around in his pocket without a case for a couple of weeks" as the record.

Despite it's rather dubious origins, Nebraska has become one of the favorites of the Springsteen catalog, and I often see people online naming it among his best. In the modern age of music, Nebraska's lo-fi sound has influenced a slew of singer/songwriters, from Johnny Cash to Sam Beam, and the haunting atmosphere of the record completely turned the perception of Bruce on it's head, removing the iconic trademark of Clarence Clemons' saxophone and bathing Springsteen's characters in darker themes than ever before. Whereas Darkness on the Edge of Town was basically a sequel to Born to Run, with songs that told the tales of what happened to those characters after they realized that the American Dream wasn't as black and white as they had believed in their youth, Nebraska focuses on different characters altogether. Here, Springsteen hones in on the underbelly of American life, often focusing on criminals or the people whose lives they disrupt. The opening title track, accented by a mournful harmonica, tells the story of a young man who went on a killing spree back in '57 and '58, and pretty much shows us right away what this record is going to be with its slow-burn storytelling and sparse, acoustic instrumentation. Interestingly, the story also inspired a Terrence Malick film called Badlands, a title Springsteen had used as his opener a mere two albums before: perhaps it's on purpose, then, that the two songs couldn't be further from one another.

Where Springsteen's previous albums were chalk full of huge full-band moments and anthemic choruses, there isn't any of that on Nebraska. Choruses become refrains (like the gorgeous one that floats through "Highway Patrolman"), and the sole obvious "hook" belongs to "Atlantic City," which became the most well known song from the collection. It's also the best, perfectly balancing Springsteen's older melodic ideals with this album's stark atmosphere, and coming out with a song that, despite finding its basis in no more than three chords, is immediately memorable. "Atlantic City," much like the songs on Born to Run, depicts a couple's romantic escape to a promised land of sorts, only to find that the city is as dangerous, corrupt, and difficult as anywhere they've ever been. Mafia violence and involvement permeates every moment of the song, from the iconic opening line ("Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night"), to the second verse, detailing the rise of crime in the gambling circuit, all the way to the final lines above, where the desperate protagonist turns to crime himself in order to make his way on the mean streets. Just like "Meeting Across the River," the penultimate cut on Born to Run, "Atlantic City" is a masterclass in lyricism precisely because it cuts the story off just before the climax. In "Meeting," it was a man trying to talk his friend into helping him out with a heist of sorts. Here, it's a man in a similar situation, and whether the "favor" he's prepared to do is in connection with the mob or in defiance of it doesn't really matter: something in Springsteen's delivery lets us know that things aren't going to go as planned.

"Highway Patrolman" is one of the most fully realized story songs in the Springsteen catalog, something Sean Penn must have realized when he made a movie based on it with 1991's The Indian Runner. Springsteen weaves the tale of a cop and his brother, a notorious screw up who the protagonist feels obligated to protect. The song masterfully juxtaposes happy memories with the main plotline, where Frank, the brother, kills a man in a bar brawl and then flees the country, with the "Patrolman" in hot pursuit. Ultimately, the brotherly bond wins out, and he lets Frank get away, saying "man turns his back on his family, well he just ain't no good." Themes of family permeate numerous other songs on the record, from "Used Cars" to "My Father's House," all with similar sonic textures (a 4-track doesn't allow for too much variety), but all with lyrical content that ranks amongst Springsteen's most spellbinding, and all with a hypnotic delivery from the man himself that embodies the songs' characters with life and spark. And indeed, these characters are among Springsteen's most fleshed out and memorable: take the title character in "Johnny 99," who turns to crime after losing his job and being left with "debts no honest man can pay" (the same theme as "Atlantic City," right down to the lyric). In a robbery gone awry, the character kills a clerk, and gets sentenced to life in prison, only to ask instead for the death penalty. Or take the protagonist in "State Trooper," a paranoid criminal whose plea of "Mr. State Trooper, please don't stop me," serves as the song's refrain as he drives through the darkness of middle America. Perhaps it's the same character from "Stolen Car," the guy who was just hoping to get caught so that things in his life would change; perhaps it's a different person, a person who knows that if he gets pulled over, he'll have no choice but to pull the trigger yet again. It's likely that Springsteen fully intended to leave the connection rather ambiguous, and that he does so on numerous occasions throughout his career only makes his discography that much more riveting and rewarding to explore.

"Open All Night," like "Atlantic City" or "Johnny 99" is more of a stripped down rock song than it is a piece of folk or Americana, and it's perhaps for that reason that these songs have remained standbys in Springsteen's live sets more so than the ones that surround them. The song has a drive and edge that would not have felt out of place on the latter half of Born in the U.S.A., and for that matter, a foot-stomping rhythm that feels a bit like the first five tracks on his latest. It's also the only appearance of electric guitar on the record (or of amplified instrumentation at all), and would be notable for that reason alone, even if it weren't as solid and straight up enjoyable as it is. And while I think it ranks as one of Springsteen's weaker closers, "Reason to Believe" serves as a perfect conclusion to this set of songs. Much like the characters in "Darkness on the Edge of Town" or "Wreck on the Highway," the figures in "Reason to Believe" are beset on all sides by tragedy or misfortune, but as Springsteen sings in the refrain, "at the end of every hard earned day, people find some reason to believe." Despite the fact that Nebraska is Springsteen's most hopeless record to date, it ends with a song that is, at least partially, a hymn to human resilience, giving the record a satisfying arc, and making it that much more rewarding on repeat listens: in that sense, "Reason to Believe" is a terrific finale.

If Nebraska is Springsteen's most unique record, it's also his most challenging. Over the years, this record has confused me, moved me, frustrated me, and amazed me, sometimes all at the same time; I've ranked it everywhere from fifth to tenth in terms of his discography, and unlike most other record's in the catalog, there are some days when I'm just not in the mood for this one. Certainly, it's never obtained the level of respect or the sheer volume of plays that I've bestowed upon Born to Run, and I've never been able to wrap my head around the lists where I see it ranked above that album, which I think is the only completely flawless full-length work in the history of recorded music. I don't think it compares to the four records that preceded it, and I also think that The River's more downbeat moments did a similar type of darkness in a more effective way. All of that said, on the days when I feel truly in the mood for Nebraska, I can put it on and completely understand why it's Springsteen's second most revered album: I can fully see how brave it was for him to strip his sound down to its rawest and barest essentials; I can see why the lyrics of this record have been the subject of entire studies by "Springsteen scholars; I can certainly see why this record, more than perhaps any I really know, has an almost cult following; and mostly, I can understand why this record took Springsteen to another level in terms of how he was viewed as a songwriter, how this might be the record to thank for his undisputed legendary status (because really, could there possibly be a soul who dislikes Born to Run, Born in the U.S.A., AND Nebraska?) So while it will never be my favorite Springsteen album, while I will almost always prefer to hear Springsteen's voice and lyrics with the full force of the E-Street Band behind them, Nebraska is an important piece of music history that I at very least respect, and one that, on its best days, I truly love.