Nothing Special
Four Albums That Are, You Know, Fine

Last week I praised the return of Levellers, one of the best political-minded bands I know of. Well, when hope falls from the sky, it keeps on falling. Just this week it was announced that a reunited Midnight Oil, one of the most important bands in the world, will be releasing not one but two new records this year.

The first of them, The Makarrata Project, is due in the summer. It finds the Oils working alongside indigenous Australian musicians and singing about the rights of indigenous peoples the world over. Near the end of the year we should also get a new Oils album, a broad-ranging rock record dealing with the state of the world. As we lurch ever closer to a second Trump term, I need bands like Midnight Oil to channel my rage and disappointment. I’m very much looking forward to both of these releases.

It’s great to have something to look forward to, because 2020 isn’t shaping up to be particularly amazing yet. There are like three records I am anticipating – not breathlessly anticipating, but at least looking forward to – through April. The next one I cannot wait for is Rufus Wainwright’s Unbreak the Rules, out on April 24. I would love to feel something more for the records we’re getting until then, but I just don’t.

So in the meantime, here’s a few sentences about four records that are, you know, fine.

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I would love to hear what everyone else seems to hear in Tame Impala.

It’s not that I dislike Kevin Parker or his work. It’s just that every Tame Impala record comes with such an outpouring of hype now that it’s hard to distance what he actually does from what people seem to hear in what he does. Nothing about Parker’s previous three one-man projects were magical, and I can now say the same about his fourth, The Slow Rush. It’s pretty good. It won’t set your world on fire, though.

In fact, more than any other Tame Impala record, this one feels designed to underwhelm. It’s a more patient, thoughtful thing, still living and dying by its banks of vintage-sounding synthesizers, but less showy. Songs here sometimes take a while to get anywhere (and some, like the six-minute “Posthumous Forgiveness,” take a while to get nowhere), and Parker counts on your willingness to go with him as he sets moods and atmospheres.

That’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with that approach, if your audience has already bought in. I found The Slow Rush to be an album that demanded repeat listens, but did not inspire them. I’m still a big fan of the groovy “Lost in Yesterday,” with its shimmy right out of Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel.”

I like a few others here too, but most of it gets lost in a sort of mush in my memory. I’m sure further listens would help untangle it, but I have so many other albums demanding my attention that I don’t know when I’ll be back to this one.

* * * * *

I mean no disrespect when I say that Huey Lewis and the News are the world’s luckiest wedding band.

Because they’re a pretty damn good wedding band, honestly. I’d dance at a wedding they were playing. I’ve liked Huey and his cohorts for nearly as long as I have been alive – their biggest record, Sports, came out when I was nine years old, and I remember hearing “The Heart of Rock ‘n’ Roll” and “I Want a New Drug” and “If This is It” on the radio at that age. I also remember Huey’s charming music videos, which I think did as much as anything to make him a superstar.

We haven’t heard much from Huey and the News for the past two decades. Their new one, Weather, is only their third since 2001. And now I hear that Lewis is suffering so much hearing damage that he may never tour again, and this may be the band’s final studio outing. That Weather itself is only seven songs and 26 minutes indicates to me that these were the songs the band finished while Lewis could work.

It’s a shame, too, because while this is not vintage Huey Lewis, it’s pretty good. “While We’re Young,” the leadoff song and single, combines a synthesized studio groove with the band’s trademark horns and Jonny Colla’s smooth guitar. “Her Love is Killin’ Me” is a bluesy romp with Huey picking up the harp again, “Remind Me Why I Love You Again” gets James-Brown-in-the-‘80s funky, and “Pretty Girls Everywhere” indulges the band’s love of ‘50s rock. The last track, “One of the Boys,” is pure old-school country, and Lewis’ voice straddles irony here, as it often does.

I wish there were not so many drum loops here, but that’s my main complaint. Weather is a nice final visit with Huey Lewis and the News, and if it turns out to be their last record, it touches on a lot of what made them cultural icons. In spite of myself, I will miss this band. They meant a lot to me growing up, and still do.

* * * * *

Don’t be alarmed, but Sepultura has slowly become good again.

I know the conventional wisdom is that as soon as everyone named Cavalera headed out for greener pastures, the band would fizzle out. But that simply hasn’t happened. In fact, Brazil’s strongest metal band has only grown stronger, and the new lineup – with two longtime members, a new drummer and second singer Derrick Green – has now fully gelled.

2017’s Machine Messiah was the best Sepultura album in many a moon, its songs longer and more complex than the ragers the band had been cranking out previously. And now Quadra, the band’s 15th long-player, follows that up with another winner. The band is tight, the production is elaborate when it needs to be (Strings! Choirs!) and raw when it wants to bite your face off, and the songs are killer. Drummer Eloy Casangrande co-wrote most of these tracks, so the percussive elements are top notch.

Really, there isn’t a weak moment here, and although this doesn’t quite rise to the heights of the band’s heyday, I’d say Sepultura is well worth paying attention to, still.

* * * * *

And finally, we have the Innocence Mission. And I lied above when I said these records would just be fine, because on further listen, this one is pretty terrific.

The Innocence Mission, built around married couple Don and Karen Peris, has been gifting us with lovely melodic folk music for 30 years. It’s hard to even fathom that, but it’s true – their first album came out in 1989. Their new one, See You Tomorrow, is their 11th, not counting a bevy of EPs, and after several sparser records, this one fills out the sound with pianos and melodicas and electric guitars and tympanis and other lovely accoutrements.

This means that the sound is richer, but the songs are just as pretty as they’ve always been, and Karen Peris’ voice as haunting and fragile. I would point out highlights – like the delightful opener, “The Brothers Williams Said,” or the brief “At Lake Maureen,” or the absolutely gorgeous “Stars That Fall Away From Us” – but honestly the entire thing is a highlight. It’s their best in years, and I look forward to sinking into it many more times in the coming months.

Listen and buy here.

* * * * *

That will do it for this week. More random records next week!

See you in line Tuesday morning.

On Target
Derek Webb Returns with a Fiery New Record

I’ve never been a big fan of boxes.

The number one question I get from well-meaning people who discover my obsession is this one: “What kind of music do you like?” There’s just no answering that question. I wish there were. It would make my life that much easier if I could rattle off a couple categories and encapsulate my experience with music. There’s just no way. I usually end up saying something trite like “Oh, I enjoy all kinds of music,” and leave it up to interpretation. Whatever people think I mean is likely included in what I actually mean.

But if I could answer that the way I want to, I’d say that music is bigger than the boxes we try to put it in. We slap marketing terms on it so we can subdivide the iTunes store page, but music – the basic, core idea of music – cannot be subdivided. It cannot be stamped, folded, spindled or mutilated. The best thing about music is that anyone is able to make any music they like, whether they’ve been shoved into a box before or not. The boxes mean nothing. Music is music. It’s the most freeing thing in the world.

I suppose this goes without saying, but people are like that too. We try to label people as Democrats or Republicans, rich or poor, lazy or hard-working, believers or non-believers, on and on. And people are far more complex than all that. I’m constantly having discussions with people about my faith, and the overarching theme of those conversations is a belief in something that does not fit the typical boxes we try to shove it in. People are complicated. God even more so.

Despite that, we still want something as personal and labyrinthine as faith to have an on-off switch, to be a binary. And we often don’t want to listen to people we perceive as on the other side of that binary. I’m talking now, of course, about Derek Webb, who spent half his life making thoughtful Christian music before upending his marriage and deconstructing his faith in a pretty public way. In 2017 Webb made an album called Fingers Crossed that is one of the most harrowing, difficult and beautiful works in the post-faith genre I have ever heard. (It was my number one album of that year.)

The first song on Fingers Crossed was called “Stop Listening,” and many in his former fanbase took that title to heart. But I think it’s important for people of all walks of life to listen to thoughtful discourse on issues like faith and religion and the harm churches do to their members – we can learn so much from people who have different experiences from us. (Full disclosure: I have always had a testy relationship with church, only recently coming back around to the idea. I went through a lot of the questions people like Webb and David Bazan have about faith a long time ago, so I resonate deeply with art that tackles those questions.)

One thing that made Fingers Crossed such a difficult listen was its sense of isolation. Webb had made one-man band records before, but he’d never made one that sounded so alone, so haunted. A spare and slow effort, Fingers Crossed dissected each of its hard emotions carefully, and kept you locked into them. It was an album about grief, and for its follow-up, Webb has decided that the time for grief is over. That’s literally the tagline of his new album, the blistering and joyous Targets.

You’ll hear the difference right away. Targets is a rock record, made with a full band. The guitars are all Webb, and here they snarl and spit and shout in exultation. The junky snare that propels the title track is killer, Webb letting loose with a riff that leaves no doubt where his head is at this time. Hearing this right after “Goodbye for Now,” the painful closer of its predecessor, is like throwing the drapes open on a sunny day. That mood continues through the single “All of Me is Here” and the ‘70s-drenched “The Safest Place.” You can be halfway done with this thing before you catch your breath.

Targets is short – a mere 37 minutes, almost half an hour shorter than Fingers Crossed – but it packs quite a punch. True to its marketing, this album is a celebration of freedom. Webb sounds like he’s done wrestling with a lot of the things that weighed him down last time, and has accepted where he has landed. “All of Me is Here” contains the most headline-grabbing material, as far as his former fanbase is concerned: “Do you remember when we used to sing about Ba’al and Zeus? See, we’re all atheists, I just go one god further than you,” he sings in the opening lines, later adding this about the church and its original sin doctrine: “You don’t need debt relief unless someone convinces you that you’re broke…”

That song positively rocks, and a lot of Webb’s observations and provocations here glide by a lot more charmingly backed by such driving music. “Good Grief” is a masterpiece, a slower song about how worthwhile it is to mourn who you were and what you believed. “It wasn’t wasted time, not a wasted dime or a tear, it’s such a sweet relief, such a good good grief to get here…” Similarly, “Death With Benefits” is a legitimately sad song for an element of his faith he no longer subscribes to: “I miss the myth of death with benefits,” he sings, his newfound uncertainty unbalancing him.

But see? Complex. “Death With Benefits” is a song that only someone who once truly, deeply believed in life after death could or would write, and it shivers with that authenticity. It doesn’t quite fit the box that others will put him in, and neither does the fact that he is now married to Abbie Parker, lead singer of Christian band I Am They. Half of this album consists of love songs, clearly inspired by Parker – my favorite is the jaunty “Plain Sight” – and it’s gratifying to hear Webb so elated with life again. I’m not saying I know anything about their relationship, just that it doesn’t fit the idea of the sad, angry atheist that some try to claim he is.

In fact, none of Targets fits that idea. This is like the more celebratory moments of Quiet Company’s grand We Are All Where We Belong, finding freedom in the choice not to believe. Closer “Come Home To Your Body” is in the same vein as Taylor Muse’s (ahem) musings on belonging to the earth – this life is all we are, this life is all we have, and that’s OK, Webb is saying. Embrace it. Learn to love it. “Finally found a place to live and finally found a place to die.”

Whether or not I agree with his conclusions on Targets is immaterial. I am enjoying every minute of this journey he is on, and I feel grateful to be allowed such an intimate window into it. Targets is a stomper, a barnburner, a rollicking good time, an album about Webb leaving grief behind and appreciating where he is right now. It’s not the final stop on this journey, not by a long shot, but after the pain of deconstruction, it’s lovely to hear him so contented. In many ways this is the opposite of Fingers Crossed – it’s a record full of love, full of community, full of joy. Whatever it took to get here, it wasn’t wasted time.

Check out Targets and other Webb records at www.derekwebb.com.

Next week, a bunch of random records.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Coping Mechanisms
Three Records, Three Ways to Deal with the World Outside

It’s funny how some bands show up right when you need them.

This has been a tough, tough week here in America, as we seem to be testing just how far our democracy can stretch before it breaks. I don’t like being political in here, because that’s really not what this silly music column is about, but when the anxiety of simply living in a place where the rule of law gets trampled and cruelty gets to gloat and take revenge gets so high that I can’t ignore it, it’ll inevitably spill out into this space. I’m having a very difficult time with the events of the past few days, as I’m sure many are.

So I was pretty happy, then, to receive word that after an eight-year absence, one of my favorite politically aware bands would be roaring back. (No, no, not Rage Against the Machine.) I’ve been a Levellers fan since the early ‘90s, when my good friend Chris played me “The Game” off of their amazing second record, Levelling the Land. Named after a political movement during the English Civil War, the Levellers are probably best described as a folk-punk band, but that doesn’t quite do them justice to me. Imagine the Waterboys with the fury of the Alarm, or Fairport Convention with a kick. I dunno. They’re just the Levellers.

The new Levellers album is called Peace, and it will be out in August. Here is the first single, “Food Roof Family,” and it’s classic Levellers. I didn’t know how much I needed this band until they were back. Their music has often helped me make sense of strange political times – their terrific 2008 record, Letters from the Underground, was a summation of and reaction to the Bush-Blair era – and I’m hopeful they can help me again.

I’ve found for me that there are only a few ways of dealing with the reality of our current era, and music is one of them. More generally speaking, though, I think there are a few ways to respond to the crushing anxiety of everyday life now, and lo and behold, I have musical examples to illustrate each one. I’m not saying these are the only ways of coping, but they’re the three options that most often present themselves to me, or that others recommend. So here goes.

  1. Take a break.

Obviously this is easier said than done, and doesn’t do anything to fix things. But sometimes you need to disengage, take a break, turn off the noise and stop thinking about it. If you’re privileged enough to be able to do this, it’s a valid response. Just don’t stay away too long.

Green Day has done exactly that on their new record, Father of All Motherfuckers. (Yep, these guys are pushing 50 and have named their new album Father of All Motherfuckers.) Green Day has always been a socially conscious band, and saw their greatest success with American Idiot, which took aim at the Bush years. Their most recent album, Revolution Radio, had a lot to say about persevering through troubled times, and its release just a month before Trump’s election was well timed.

Father of All doesn’t do any of those things. It’s a quick record that only wants to get you out on the dance floor. It spans an astonishingly short 26 minutes, and only two of its 10 songs top three minutes. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but this record is largely uninspired and insipid, so the short running time turns out to be a blessing. The singles are probably the worst, so if you made it through the Joan-Jett-cover-of-Gary Glitter-sampling “Oh Yeah,” you can probably handle the rest. (BTW, the band is donating their royalties from that song to organizations that help victims of sexual assault and rape, since Glitter is a convicted sex offender.)

That said, if all you want is half an hour of fun, and you don’t think about how generic songs like “I Was a Teenage Teenager” are, Father of All provides. It flies by in a blur, barely registering if you’re not paying attention, and its one-four-five chord progressions feel like wallpaper to me. But it definitely accomplishes its goal of being a turn-off-your-brain affair. If this whole thing took them more than a weekend, I would be surprised. But as a small vacation from weightier things, it works.

  1. Get angry.

I hesitate to admit that this is generally my default lately. I am trying to channel the anger into productivity, but sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes I just sit and seethe. And when that happens, I need angry music to channel those emotions. Often I will reach for metal – the new Sepultura is pretty excellent, for example – but for the past few days the album that has been doing it for me was a total surprise.

It’s The Unraveling, the topical and terrific new album from Drive-By Truckers. Patterson Hood and his co-conspirators have always had a lot to say, but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard them so pissed off before. The music is the same gritty country-rock they’ve always delivered (and that former member Jason Isbell does so well), but the lyrics are more specific and more explosive than they’ve been.

The Neil Young-ish “Thoughts and Prayers” is a great example. It is, of course, about school shootings, and about how our politicians are bought and paid into silence and inaction. Here’s a key verse:

“When my children’s eyes look at me and ask me to explain,
It hurts me that I have to look away
The powers that be are in for shame and comeuppance
When Generation Lockdown has their day
They’ll throw the bums out and drain the swamp for real
Perp walk them down the Capitol steps and show them how it feels
Tramp the dirt down, Jesus, you can pray the rod they’ll spare
Stick it up your ass with your useless thoughts and prayers…”

Damn, right? This same razor-sharp fury fuels songs like “21st Century USA” and “Babies in Cages” and “Grievance Merchants,” each one targeting a different aspect of our current hellscape. “Are we so divided that we can’t at least agree that this ain’t the country that our granddads fought for us to be,” Hood sings, and I can only hope that he’s right.

The Unraveling ends with the glorious eight-minute “Awaiting Resurrection,” on which Hood asks if there’s an evil in this world, and then names it: “Guns and ammunition, babies in a cage, they say nothing can be done but they’ll tell us how they prayed, in the end we’re just standing watching greatness fade…” This is a record that swims through the injustices playing out every day and pulls them out into the light, and I am here for it. If you’re angry about the same things I am, The Unraveling is an album for you.

  1. Stay positive, be loving.

This is, bar none, the most difficult reaction, because it’s not natural. It’s something you have to make yourself do, something you have to learn. It’s a shifting of one’s priorities, a swallowing of one’s first reactions. I’m not great at it. I try my best, but often I need to be reminded of what I am putting out into the world, and how much more loving I could be.

And when I need those reminders this year, I expect I will turn to the beautiful new album from Nada Surf, Never Not Together. If you haven’t been paying attention to Nada Surf since “Popular,” you have missed one of the finest artistic evolutions I can name. They’ve become a wonderful band, giving us tuneful guitar-pop of the highest order on album after album. And now they’ve done it again.

Never Not Together is the band’s ninth album, and their most uplifting and hopeful. Just the act of listening to it makes me feel lighter, like the thick atmosphere of the world has lifted from my chest. Nada Surf has often been a source of positivity and resilience – just listen to The Weight is a Gift – but they’ve never been this giddy, this clearly in love with life, over an entire record. This of course means that the lyrics here are easy to make fun of – song titles include “So Much Love,” “Live Learn and Forget” and “Just Wait” – but Mathew Caws believes in them. When he says “you’re gonna be just fine, it may take some time,” he means it, and the band surrounds him with gentle and gorgeous music.

Never Not Together is a delightful thing. I’m even OK with the return of Caws’ sing-speaking, a la “Popular,” in the bouncy “Something I Should Do.” His rant this time is about empathy, and it works. The whole album works. In my darkest days, this record provides exactly the encouragement I need: stay alive, stay engaged, stay loving. Take a break if you need to, get angry if you must, but react with love as much and as often as you can. We will get through this.

Next week, Derek Webb takes aim on Targets.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Taking the High Road
Kesha Follows the Rainbow and Goes Everywhere at Once

The Good Place came to an end last week.

I haven’t talked too much about this show – which has manifestly been my favorite thing on television for the past four years – because I was afraid. I’ve certainly been guilty before of pumping up shows that failed to stick their endings. The Good Place is a show that, as it went along, became more and more dependent on that ending to clarify its message, and I was worried that it wouldn’t.

I should have had more faith. The Good Place was created by Parks and Recreation mastermind Michael Schur, and it’s clear now that he had a coherent and well-thought-out plan for what he was trying to say with his show. If you’ve never watched, I can only describe the first of many premises: Kristen Bell plays Eleanor Shellstrop, who wakes up to find herself in the afterlife. She’s told (by Ted Danson as heavenly architect Michael) that she’s in the good place, because she lived such a selfless and extraordinary life.

There’s only one problem: she didn’t, and she knows she didn’t. She quickly susses out the fact that she’s in the good place by accident, and has to learn how to be a good person in order to stay. After that, there are twists upon twists – the show in season three did not resemble the show in season one at all – but the theme remained the same: people can get better. Progress is slow, but people can improve, and we can all help each other become the best versions of ourselves.

The show took some narrative turns in its fourth and final season that made me even more nervous, but the ending was absolutely marvelous. It was, in fact, one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen on television. It managed to be entirely about these six characters we have come to love, while also nailing the themes that the show has been forwarding for four years. I am so happy to have been privileged enough to experience this show. It turned out to be the most optimistic, gorgeous thing, a show that champions incremental progress and the value of community. It’s not perfect, but it’s about as close as TV gets, and while I am glad it went out on its own terms, I’m going to miss it very much.

I say this with all the love in my heart and all the wisdom of the universe: take it sleazy, Good Place.

* * * * *

You know when something just isn’t your thing? Like, you have nothing against it or the people who enjoy it, but it just isn’t for you?

I will readily admit that for most of her career, Kesha just hasn’t been my thing. I know people who swear by her first two grimy pop records, Animal and Warrior, and I’ve never liked either one of them. “Tik Tok,” as a song, makes me want to die a little bit. Kesha’s whole persona on those albums, combined with the plastic pop production, kills any desire I might have to listen to them. I’ve gone back a couple times to see if I can get into them, and I just can’t.

Why would I try so hard to like these records? One word: Rainbow. Kesha’s third album, released in 2017 after years of public struggle with her producer/abuser Dr. Luke, was an absolute revelation. Rainbow is just awesome, a hard-hitting song cycle about perseverance, forgiveness and being the better person, and it reintroduced Kesha as an artist worth paying attention to. The songs range from punk-ish kiss-offs to lovely balladry to a duet with Dolly Freaking Parton, and I was simply blown away by the whole thing.

So of course, I was in for whatever she chose to do next. I may not like where she’s come from, but I’m jazzed to see where she’s going. I’m a little sad to report that I’m conflicted about Kesha’s fourth album, High Road – there’s a lot to like about it, but it doesn’t move me nearly as much as its predecessor. High Road was billed as a return to the carefree party-girl Kesha, and I’m thrilled to hear her moving on and getting past some of the emotional turmoil that fueled Rainbow. High Road is about flushing one’s life of negativity and focusing on feeling good, and that’s a fine place for Kesha to find herself. I’m happy for her.

But that return to her own happiness has also brought back some of the musical tics I dislike from her earlier work. The sweet piano chords that open “Tonight” drew me in – her full-throated singing voice is, as always, spectacular – but my spirits fell through the floor as soon as the “bitch, we going out tonight” nonsense began. The first four songs on High Road all hearken back to the radio-pop days, and while “Tonight” is the only one that’s truly awful – I quite like “Raising Hell,” in fact – the tone is set.

Things get better from there, and they also get weirder, which I love. Rainbow was about Kesha learning to trust her own instincts, and in the back half of High Road they largely steer her right. She’s still delightfully vulgar, even in her most delicate moments – the ballad “Shadow” includes a whole verse about the fact that she loves singing “fuck” in all of her songs – but it’s those delicate moments I like best here. “Cowboy Blues” is a tender acoustic lament, in which Kesha asks “did I fuck my whole life up?” “Resentment,” right after that, brings in Sturgill Simpson and a basically inaudible Brian Wilson for a lullaby of bitterness.

I love that Kesha seems to do whatever she wants, from the bouncy ‘60s pop of “Little Bit of Love” to the chiptune horniness of “Birthday Suit.” Her most left-field number here is “The Potato Song,” with its Cabaret-like arrangement, complete with tubas. Her voice adapts to fit each of these artistic swerves, and it’s remarkable that her musical identity can encompass all of this – hell, “The Potato Song” has a kazoo interlude, and it sounds natural.

It’s easy for me to forgive some of the album’s early missteps by the time we hit the emotional final third. “BFF” is a sweet ‘80s-style duet with her songwriting partner, Stephen Wrabel, while the wrenching “Father Daughter Dance” finds her opening up about her absent father – “He’s nothing, he’s no one, a stranger.” It’s a powerful song, and I hope she finds it within herself to write more like it, because she nails it. Closer “Chasing Thunder” is a big folk-pop song, but it sets the right wide-open-spaces note for this album to end on.

That Kesha manages all of this in 45 minutes is both High Road’s strength and weakness. She covers a lot of ground, from the blippy pop of the first songs to the organic beauty of the last ones, and sacrifices consistency to do it. But in its best moments, High Roadcatches the spark that made Rainbow such a wonder. There’s no one else I can think of who would have made this record this way, and there’s no doubt that it’s exactly what she wanted it to be. Kesha is still evolving as an artist, still finding out who she wants to be, and if High Road sounds like she wants to be everything all at once, she still proves that her journey is worth listening to.

Next week, Green Day and a few others.

See you in line Tuesday morning.