Cass McCombs: Mangy Love

CASS McCOMBS: MANGY LOVE (2016)

1) Bum Bum Bum; 2) Rancid Girl; 3) Laughter Is The Best Medicine; 4) Opposite House; 5) Medusa's Outhouse; 6) Low Flyin' Bird; 7) Cry; 8) Run Sister Run; 9) In A Chinese Alley; 10) It; 11) Switch; 12) I'm A Shoe.

Still padded to some extent, but on the whole, Mangy Love is probably the single most coherent and straightforward body of depressed pop songs in McCombs' entire career so far. The most striking thing about it is how evenly balanced it is — not too fast, not too slow, not too hooky, not too hookless, not too ravaging, not too lethargic, not too lyrically obscure, not too verbally simplistic. Under different circumstances, this might have meant a very boring, ordinary, white-noise-like experience. But Cass spent so much time trying to «distinguish» himself with rub-it-in-yer-face minimalistic gimmicks that it all sounds good now. It's like a, «what, you mean there's not a single eight-minute long, two-chord wide, totally lyric-oriented ballad on the album? Oh, bles­sed be the ways of the Lord!»

There's plenty of darkness, for sure, but darkness is hardly a gimmick in an era where more and more people begin to realize that darkness never really went away, it simply camouflaged itself for a while. The first song on Mangy Love is about unstoppable bloodshed; the last song is about getting out of this place and lying low; and in between are ten more odes to depression, repres­sion, oppres­sion, and suppression. (I think that ʽSwitchʼ is the sole attempt to write something a little more cheerful, like an homage to romantic Eighties' pop à la Duran Duran, but in the con­text of the album, even that song feels dark and cold). Since, as usual, the arrangements are quite low-key, and the lyrics require an almost philological degree of analysis to be decrypted, there is no chance whatsoever of mass success, but at least he won't be pissing off people with low atten­tion spans for repetitive simplicity masked as poignant art.

Genre-wise, he still hops from one corner to another. We have some rough, distorted blues-rock (ʽRancid Girlʼ, with a nasty Seventies-style distorted riff and oddly retro-stylized misogynistic lyrics); an attempt to put bossa nova rhythmics at the service of political paranoia and aggravation (ʽRun Sister Runʼ — this one, on the contrary, contains explicit feminist elements, culminating in "be­tween me and my brother stands our sister, don't shoot!"); what sounds like a bona fide tribute to the classic Smiths sound (ʽIn A Chinese Alleyʼ — the only thing missing is Cass adopting the vocal mannerisms of Morrissey); and a lite-jazz / folk-rock hybrid with arguably the loveliest vocal melody on the whole album — ʽLow Flyin' Birdʼ has a gorgeous chorus that has me won­dering, again and again, why McCombs does not resort to that falsetto more often.

In a way, the record feels like a short musical summary of several distinct styles popular in the late Seventies and early Eighties — on one song he sounds like a jaded, sold-out prog-rocker trying to survive in a new world, then on the next one he sounds like a young aspiring musician trying to take an active part in the dance or synth-pop revolution. Actually, the first description probably applies to more songs here than the second one: much of Mangy Love gives me the same intuitive impression as late-period albums from bands like Camel or Caravan, tiptoeing on one foot across the border of miserably empathetic and smoothly boring. The saving grace is that Cass really bothers about his hooks this time: almost every song has something to offer in the area of vocal hooks, even dance-pop numbers such as ʽCryʼ and ʽSwitchʼ.

The main problem, however, never goes away: the album clearly wants to make a big statement, but there seems to be no other way to make it than run it through some complex cloaking mecha­nism that makes protest songs into invisible protest songs and anthems into un-anthems. A song like ʽItʼ, for instance, is slow, ponderous, employs big gospel-like vocal harmonies, and even opens with lines that come dangerously close to clichés (at least, by McCombs' own standards): "It is not wealth / To have more than others / It is not peace / When others are in pain" (DUH). But if it is an anthem, and if it seems to be directed at arousing our emotions and empathies, why the hell is it so lethargic? Why are the main vocals sung as if he were dictating a paper to his secretary? Where are the bombastic guitar breaks? Why does the gospel choir never ever come out of the shadow? It's a good, melodic piece that would not have lost any of its charm if it were a little... you know... amplified. As it is, it is not likely to replace George Harrison's ʽIsn't It A Pityʼ in my «Cry For The World» playlist any time soon.

Nevertheless, it, and the rest of it, is good enough to warrant a thumbs up from me — I'd really go as far as to say that it is his second best album of all time, though still a far cry from the stroke of luck that was A. Apparently, as long as he stays away from the temptation to keep on pulling off a 21st century Dylan, and remains content to pull a 21st century mix of Andy Latimer and Mor­rissey, it'll work.

Cass McCombs: Big Wheel & Others

CASS McCOMBS: BIG WHEEL & OTHERS (2013)

1) Sean I; 2) Big Wheel; 3) Angel Blood; 4) Morning Star; 5) The Burning Of The Temple, 2012; 6) Brighter!; 7) There Can Be Only One; 8) Name Written In Water; 9) Joe Murder; 10) Everything Has To Be Just-So; 11) It Means A Lot To Know You Care; 12) Dealing; 13) Sooner Cheat Death Than Fool Love; 14) Satan Is My Toy; 15) Sean II; 16) Home On The Range; 17) Brighter!; 18) Untitled Spain Song; 19) Sean III; 20) Honesty Is No Excuse; 21) Aeon Of Aquarius Blues; 22) Unearthed.

I wonder if I should or should not go the «ambitious is always good» route here? After all, it is not true that this last decade is completely free of grand, larger-than-thou musical gestures: from Arcade Fire and all the way to Kanye West, people are still trying to bite off more than they can chew, even as natural selection causes their jaws to keep shrinking with each new generation. And after a string of serious musical disappointments, could it be the right decision for Cass McCombs to gamble it all on a sprawling, two-disc collection of twenty songs in half a dozen different musical styles, presenting his own, contemporary mega-take on Americana?..

As usual, the absolute majority of other people's positive opinions that I have seen focus almost exclusively on the lyrics. And they are really good lyrics, yes: the man is now capable even of finding a non-clichéd way to deliver a sermon on the age-old problem of peace, love, and mutual understanding (ʽEverything Has To Be Just-Soʼ), let alone continuing to find fresh metaphors to lay on the age-older problem of him-and-her (ʽSooner Cheat Death Than Fool Loveʼ) or, inciden­tally, deliver some of the most viciously offensive anti-religious (anti-clerical, to be accurate) chastushkas to come out of the progressive camp (ʽSatan Is My Toyʼ), though you have to listen really carefully to get it. And you have to listen even more carefully, sometimes, to understand if he is using redneck imagery directly and scornfully, or as a metaphor for something completely different altogether (ʽBig Wheelʼ). Anyway, the guy continues to be a good poet...

...but does he continue to be a good musician? That's a far more difficult question. Despite the sprawling length of this collection, it manages to avoid both the unending lethargy of Wit's End and the simplistic repetitive crudeness of Humor Risk. With a couple tolerable exceptions, the songs do not seriously overstay their welcome, run along at steady, energetic rootsy tempos, and occasionally feature vocal and instrumental pop hooks, so it's not really much of a chore sitting through all of this in one go. And, as somewhat inferior, derivative resuscitations of age-honored musical styles, they work all right. ʽBig Wheelʼ will appeal to anybody who'd like to know how Chuck Berry would sound when played by Fairport Convention (but with musicianship that would probably make Richard Thompson cringe). ʽAngel Bloodʼ and a whole bunch of other country-tinged tracks here will warm the heart of all Gram Parsons fans (on the whole, I'd say that Gram Parsons could all but be proclaimed this record's mascot). ʽJoe Murderʼ is Joy Division bleakness peppered with avantgarde sax blasts à la original King Crimson. ʽDealingʼ and a couple more acoustic ballads recycle the old Donovan / ʽDear Prudenceʼ chord sequences... all in all, these reworked influences are okay, and it is clear that Cass is not interested in pushing any boundaries — he just wants himself some tasteful backdrops for his statements.

Which, much as I am trying to fight this, inevitably brings us back to the lyrics and the whole conceptual shenanigan — especially since the album is introduced (and then twice more inter­rupted) with bits of dialog sampled from the 1969 documentary Sean, a series of dialogs between a filmmaker and a 4-year old kid raised by his hippie parents in Haight-Ashbury (apparently, Cass had been a fan of the documentary for quite a long time, since some of his songs were used for the soundtrack of a follow-up, Following Sean, as early as 2005). Given that the dialog re­veals the little boy to be a grass smoker, a police-hater, and a God denier, you could say that Big Wheel & Others revolves around some sort of anti-establishment frame, but Cass is too smart and too hip to come out with any unambiguous judgements... too smart and hip, really, so much so that, ultimately, the record still suffers from a certain emotional vacuum. Is he angry? Is he sad? Is he from another planet? Is he just telling it like it is? Does he agree with Sean on all the philo­sophical points the boy makes? Does he eat grass, or smoke it? Who knows?

Anyway, I'd be totally wasted if I started waxing philosophical over all these songs, so let's just skip over to the last one — you know, the coda, the finale, the denouement, the unveiling of The Truth, whatever, and hey, it's called ʽUnearthedʼ, so it might really reveal something. What have we got here? Acoustic, slightly lo-fi, slow ballad, "it won't be too long, it won't be too long", so there's some sort of blind prophet apocalypse vibe... "I moved 75 thousand tons of earth with my teeth... I met a toad that belched up a bottle" (this is sung a bit close to the motif of ʽA Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fallʼ), "and in the bottle was a note, a note I knew you wrote... how come you keep your true feelings so well hidden?". Uh... that's it? This is how our long journey ends? This is why I had to sit through nine minutes of ʽEverything Has To Be Just-Soʼ and seven minutes of ʽHome On The Rangeʼ? Boy, what a downer.

The biggest problem with the album is that it is long, it is meandering, it is trying to tell us some­thing important — and it never really seems to understand what it is trying to tell us. It's one of those respectable, but wasted efforts where the smart artist outsmarts himself by focusing too much on his own enigma. On the bright side of things, it is a sort-of-timeless statement that is in no way bound hands-and-feet to the year or decade in which it was released, so who knows? per­haps, in fifty years time or less, critics will dig it out, dust it off, and declare it a major master­piece that was way ahead of its time, a time when reviewers either praised it without understan­ding it (like the Pitchfork people) or simply confessed to not understanding it (like yours truly). But my guess is that even fifty years from now, Big Wheel & Others will, at the very best, be one of those albums that everybody tips a hat to for the effort but nobody really listens to because it all kind of seems more impressive on paper than in the air.

Cass McCombs: Humor Risk

CASS McCOMBS: HUMOR RISK (2011)

1) Love Thine Enemy; 2) The Living Word; 3) The Same Thing; 4) To Every Man His Chimera; 5) Robin Egg Blue; 6) Mystery Mail; 7) Meet Me At The Mannequin Gallery; 8) Mariah.

McCombs' second album, in his own words, was "just punched out", and it certainly sounds like that. If the ultimate keywords for Wit's End were «slow, draggy, and atmospheric», then Humor Risk clearly tries to restore the balance with «upbeat, loud, and energetic». Unfortunately, that does not make it much of an improvement over its more pensive and serious older brother. It only makes it more obvious how annoying McCombs can get when he is not really trying.

Let us keep it clean and precise. Cass has always had and still has his way with words. You take a song like ʽLove Thine Enemyʼ and just look at the lyrics — and there are some sharp contrasts there, like "Every idiot thing you say speaks of pain and truth / Because of the beautiful way your tongue can seduce". He walks a nice thin line between the mystical sarcasm of Dylan and the heart-on-sleeve attitude of simplistic indie writers, provoking and challenging at least a little bit in almost every song. But his singing, so magical at times on A, has all but deteriorated to a monotonous murmur; and as for the music, the song has little going for it other than a distorted three-chord rock riff. Does that suffice to count for «enchantment»? Sorry, no.

Some people have compared his attitude on this tune to the classic sounds of The Velvet Under­ground — this is very, very silly, in my opinion, but since the comparison has been made, it makes sense to make use of it and remind everybody that on classic simple VU rockers, as mono­tonous as they could be, the atmosphere was generated by the total unity of purpose between all of the song's elements. You had a nasty guitar sound, a nasty vocalist, and some nasty lyrics that, taken together, generated Rebel Art like crazy. But in ʽLove Thine Enemyʼ, the primal power of the distorted riff is wasted — it does not really click in perfection with the lyrics or the vocals or the rest of the arrangement. It's just there because Cass likes to give us a bit of simplistic rock riffage from time to time, to establish a connection with the old punk spirit despite not having a punk spirit himself.

It gets worse, much worse on ʽMystery Mailʼ. At least ʽLove Thine Enemyʼ is short, but this other song, riding a half-century old chord sequence without any variety whatsoever, goes on for eight minutes. I don't know if the story about «Daniel» and his unfortunate experiments with drugs and the law is autobiographical, or allegorical, or culled from real or fictional sources, or is just some homage to a Springsteen or a Tom Petty ballad, and I certainly do not care to know: all I know is that the whole thing is mind-numbingly boring. (It also rips off its vocal intro and outro from Blondie's ʽThe Hardest Partʼ — bet that is a bit of exclusive trivia you won't find anywhere else in the world other than on Only Solitaire). Is this art? Is this entertainment? Is this meaning­ful self-expression? Is this a triumph of freedom, when you can just walk into the studio, record any tripe that comes into your head on the spur of the moment and release it publicly, knowing full well that, no matter what you do, out of 7 billion people on this planet, there's bound to be at least a couple hundred thousand who will fall for it?..

I will admit that ʽThe Same Thingʼ, ʽTo Every Man His Chimeraʼ, ʽMeet Me At The Mannequin Galleryʼ and the creaky lo-fi album closer ʽMariahʼ all have some pretty vocal moments. ʽThe Same Thingʼ has a Lennon-like aura to its echoey, double-tracked vocals, but I'm talking of one phrase here — one vocal phrase repeated over and over and over for six minutes (except for the bridge sections that are nowhere near as moody). ʽTo Every Manʼ has one lovely chord change that you will already hear around 0:40 during the instrumental introduction — to get them in the vocal version, you will have to endure about a minute of super-slow, super-sparse indie-bluesy lethargic playing for each one. (As a consolation bonus, you will be pleased to learn that "California makes me sick / Like trying with a rattlesnake your teeth to pick" — a bit of Latin poetry syntax here, but quite expressive imagery all the same). And ʽMariahʼ manages to turn this particular proper name into a seductive vocal hook, rhyming it with ʽdesireʼ, ʽthe fireʼ, ʽnever tiresʼ, ʽtake me higherʼ, and even ʽinside herʼ, but even this really pretty acoustic ballad is spoiled by the idiotic lo-fi production, burying it in white noise just because we somehow have to go on and simulate the lack of access to a normal studio environment.

As far as I'm concerned, this is not a case of a talented artist suddenly (or gradually) deprived of his talent by illness, dementia, or commercial pressure. This is a case of a talented person inten­tionally wasting his talent on adaptation to the stereotypical image of an «indie artist» — you know, one for whom «sincerity» and «telling it like it is, but from your own and nobody else's individual perspective» means everything, while everything else (original melody, fresh arran­gement, musicality as such) means nothing. In other words, a case of crapola that deserves a very harsh thumbs down, and serves as a good example, I believe, of the overall unhealthy influence of «artistic expectations» on people who could do much, much better. 

Cass McCombs: Wit's End

CASS McCOMBS: WIT'S END (2011)

1) County Line; 2) The Lonely Doll; 3) Buried Alive; 4) Saturday Song; 5) Memory's Stain; 6) Hermit's Cave; 7) Pleasant Shadow Song; 8) A Knock Upon The Door.

In 2011, Cass McCombs released two complete albums — one that, according to him, was thought out slowly and meticulously, and another that was punched out more or less instanta­neously. And I do believe that with the first notes of Wit's End, it becomes easy to guess which one was which without having to listen to the second one — the words «slow» and «dreary» do not even begin to describe the lethargic coma that it is capable of inducing.

Now, of all people, I shouldn't be the one to be complaining about lethargy in reference to a Cass McCombs record. I mean, I was totally seduced by the multi-layered, aching, almost trans­cendental lethargy of A, and all through the next three albums I kept complaining how any attempt to introduce some energy, speed, and classic pop hookiness into his songs only detract from his strongest talents — so nothing could be more fine than a full return to the slowcore formula of A, right?.. Well, turns out it depends on certain conditions.

Take the second song here, ʽThe Lonely Dollʼ. It's five and a half minutes of a slow, never-chan­ging acoustic waltz, accompanied, I believe, by a soothing celesta, so that you could be plunged into a bit of a «dollhouse magic» state — and with quasi-autobiographical lyrics that tell of the protagonist's relation with "a singing doll and her grievous call". Nice? Nice. But five and a half minutes? If anything, the song sounds like a minimalist version of Dylan's ʽ4th Time Aroundʼ, borrowing the same vocal arrangement (in fact, I'm almost sure Bob could sue if he wanted to), but with less attractive lyrics, less intricate musical texture, and set at an even slower tempo. And the worst thing about it is, it does not cast a magic spell. It simply feels too obvious, and Cass' vocals have become so sweet and smooth by now, you could almost mistake him for James friggin' Taylor — who needs it?

The whole record is a collection of similar lullabies, some of them crossing the seven minute border: ʽMemory's Stainʼ is a particular offender, being also set to waltz tempo and eventually just settling down into a snail-paced ambient instrumental, where a piano and a bass clarinet duet with each other in some parallel universe where five seconds of their time is one minute in ours. And wherever you go, you find McCombs singing in the same quiet, semi-whispered manner, intentionally avoiding anything that could be construed as emotional sharpness. This could be legit if the songs weren't so lazy — but McCombs is not a great composer, and all of these chord sequences you've already heard millions of times before, and now that he is focused on keeping his arrangements as sparse as possible, always centered around a simplistic piano or acoustic guitar part... really, whenever this album is at its worst (and that happens quite often), it is simply impossible to treat it as anything more than background ambience.

I count exactly two songs here that I wouldn't mind hearing again. The opener, ʽCounty Lineʼ, shares the typical flaws of the album — slow, lethargic, criminally underarranged — but, perhaps by accident, it falls upon a great descending chord change right at the beginning: "on my way to you, old county", he sings, and then plunges downwards: "...hoping nothing's changed", with an air of bleakness and a sense of black depth from which you know that everything's changed, and few of it for the better. Later on, he continues adding great touches to the performance, using all of his typical range tricks, from baritone to falsetto, and that proverbial heart-tug is there all right. Alas, the next six songs have absolutely none of that — and in order to get to the album's second relative success, you have to allow for a 30-minute nap on the couch.

That second relative success is once again Dylan-related, because it's sort of an attempt to create his own equivalent of ʽDesolation Rowʼ. Yes, you guessed right: the song goes on for almost 10 minutes (and wouldn't you know it, it's another waltz!), with eight verses (should be ten — the Dylan song has ten), each of which ends with the declamation of the song's title, ʽA Knock Upon The Doorʼ. The lyrics are just as impenetrable (maybe even more impenetrable), but there's some sense of humor here, and a whiff of intrigue and mystery as opposed to nothing but somnambu­lance on the previous six songs. Needless to say, the 10-minute length is still excruciating for such simplicity and such slowness, and it is all the more frustrating when you think that, had he only brought back the multi-layered baroque arrangements of A, he might have totally gotten away with it (remember that with Dylan, for instance, much of the saving grace of ʽSad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlandsʼ was provided by the energetic and dense backing band). Still, perhaps it is precisely the song length that at least makes certain there's some impression of the song back in your head once the album is over.

On the whole, how could I defend this? It's almost as if the guy got so totally self-confident, he now believes that an album without interesting melodies, without creative and complex arran­gements, with intentionally lazy singing, with ridiculously outstretched song lengths, and with arrogantly obvious Dylanisms will suffice to get fan support and rave reviews in the indie press (and it did: "the enigmatic singer-songwriter returns with a dark set of songs backed by spare instrumentation and crafts what might be his best LP yet" — our friends from PitchforkMedia), mostly centered around the lyrics and their sad sad sad tales of loneliness, depression, and nostal­gia. And hey, I love sad sad sad tales of loneliness, depression, and nostalgia, but goddammit, there's so many of them on the market already... and just as we'd finally found a guy who could seemingly tell them in a fresh, unconventional manner, he goes all lazy and generic on us. And no, scattered lyrical references to Abelard, Admiral Byrd, and Memphis-huckster-Hitler-hustler do not really count as redemptive factors, so a thumbs down it is. Talk about a self-referential LP title — what a bummer.

Cass McCombs: Catacombs

CASS McCOMBS: CATACOMBS (2009)

1) Dreams-Come-True-Girl; 2) Prima Donna; 3) You Saved My Life; 4) Don't Vote; 5) The Executioner's Song; 6) Harmonia; 7) My Sister, My Spouse; 8) Lionkiller Got Married; 9) Eavesdropping On The Competition; 10) Jonesy Boy; 11) One Way To Go.

Okay, this may not be the worst pun on one's family name either, but the very fact that Cass now has to rely on puns to spark additional interest in his music is not a good sign. And, unfortunately, the decline continues. Some of the changes might seem auspicious: in contrast with the previous two records, Catacombs moves Cass away from straightforward «pop» or «rock» territory, where he never felt perfectly at home, and back to the original formula of A — meandering, potentially hypnotic singer-songwriting with charm and soul. The bad news, however, is that the magic that I felt so strongly on A is all but lacking on this release, and without the magic spark, everything that Cass does runs the risk of being deadly boring.

One reason behind this might be the musicianship: by now, Cass has a completely different backing band behind his back, and somehow, they don't seem capable of weaving a sonic tapestry that could effectively enhance and amplify McCombs' singing. Actually, they are not even invited to try, because the idea this time seems to be to keep it as stripped down as possible. Where ʽI Went To The Hospitalʼ perfectly introduced A with a dense mix of jangly guitar, omnipresent organ, and fussy percussion, ʽDreams-Come-True-Girlʼ is restricted to a choppy jazz-meets-early-Beatles rhythm pattern and siren-style background cooing from guest star Karen Black, while Cass himself delivers a pleasant, but unexceptional vocal serenade that is not melancholic enough to make you feel compassion and not sweet-tender enough to make you feel warm all over, ʽHere, There And Everywhereʼ style. Just a five-minute long slice of nicety without a sharp chorus, forgettable almost as soon as it over.

Alas, the same judgement applies to almost every other song here. The stripped-down approach to arrangements and the relaxed-nonchalant approach to vocal melodies results in a warm, lazy-day record that might, perhaps, click in some fried-brain-psychedelic manner on a particularly hot afternoon, but even then, only in a slumber-inducing way. The fact that he is back to his repetitive mantras alone is insufficient — stuff like ʽPrima Donnaʼ is basically just dissipated mumble-mumble over three repetitive acoustic chords. And you'd think that a song called ʽYou Saved My Lifeʼ should sound just a wee bit, well, livelier than this creepy-crawly snailish neo-country piece whose only memorable element is an awful adult-contemporary bassline that should have never crept out of the Eighties where it properly belongs.

Perhaps he thinks that, as a singer-songwriter, he may now be excused for writing lazy melodies with lazier arrangements because we should all be concentrating on the words? Well then, I have to say that I'd rather have those old enigmatic lines, open to all sorts of ambiguous interpretations, than stuff like ʽThe Executioner's Songʼ, a typical lyric from which goes "I'm a pretty lucky guy / I love you and I love my job" — and a typical melodic or vocal hook from which does not go at all. And these boring songs just get longer and longer: ʽHarmoniaʼ is, like, six minutes of boring acoustic strum and country slide guitars that rolls along with all the excitement of riding an aged burro through some interminable cotton field.

Tiny signs of life begin to appear towards the end: ʽMy Sister, My Spouseʼ, besides a somewhat controversial title, finally has Cass adopting a sharper, nastier vocal tone, for the first time remin­ding me of why I'd fallen for his spell in the first place — there's a sense of mysterious menace in the song, and since it is as sparsely arranged as everything else (just drums, acoustic guitar, and a few ghostly backing vocals), I have to conclude that, after all, it is not so much the fault of the musicians as it is the fault of Cass himself that the record on the whole sounds so lethargic. But then, once again, he decides to sound not like himself but rather like Leonard Cohen (ʽEaves­dropping On The Competitionʼ) or, God knows why, like The Band (ʽJonesy Boyʼ), before turning into The Avett Brothers for a last goodbye (ʽOne Way To Goʼ). Why? God only knows. Perhaps somebody just hypnotized him and put him on autopilot for these sessions.

Thus, unfortunately, we observe a clear case of «losing it» — one or two decent tracks among a sea of throwaways that give no reason whatsoever for the recognition of the well-deserved auto­nomous existence of Cass McCombs, a creative artist in his own rights. (Writing a follow-up to ʽLionkillerʼ called ʽLionkiller Got Marriedʼ is not a reason, either — it's a fine pretext to remind you of a Cass McCombs predecessor from long ago and far away, called Buddy Holly, but in this case, it's hardly a flattering comparison, because Buddy Holly's songwriting was never as lazy as McCombs' is on this album). Of course, the PitchforkMedia reviewer wasted no time in calling this record McCombs' «best ever», but apparently, he was seduced by the directness and sincerity of the album — reportedly written as a tribute to Cass' wife — whereas I, on the contrary, am almost offended by these same qualities. See, a serenade is always a nice gesture in theory, but it shouldn't be a given that if you write a serenade to your wife, it should instantaneously bump you up a notch in the critical conscience. My position is firm and simple — Cass McCombs sucks as a lovey-dovey acoustic troubadour, and deserves a thumbs down for this shift.

Cass McCombs: Dropping The Writ

CASS McCOMBS: DROPPING THE WRIT (2007)

1) Lionkiller; 2) Pregnant Pause; 3) That's That; 4) Petrified Forest; 5) Morning Shadows; 6) Deseret; 7) Crick In My Neck; 8) Full Moon Or Infinity; 9) Windfall; 10) Wheel Of Fortune.

I do not think this was the right way to go. I loved A — it was essentially an album of mantras, and it hypnotized me to a point, depending on how well the singer was able to fine-tune his voice to find that one perfect pitch for the mantra in question. Now, by the time he gets around to his third album, Cass McCombs presents us with his first indisputable collection of pop hooks, and, unfortunately, that just does not work too well.

ʽLionkillerʼ opens the album with a couple of seconds reprising the annoying car siren at the end of ʽAll Your Dreamsʼ — implying, allegedly, that Dropping The Writ has to be taken as a direct sequel to PREfection, but this is not really the case. ʽLionkillerʼ itself is a three-chord grunge-folk rocker, with an endlessly spinning wash cycle that seems to promise some thunderous reso­lution, but never really does — and, what is even worse, McCombs himself is reduced to the role of a boring murmurer, spinning some figuratively autobiographical jumpin'-jack-flash-in-reverse-like tale about his safe middle class upbringing, but without even once making full use of his beautiful voice. Essentially, the song's ominous atmosphere is wasted.

As we proceed further, it becomes obvious that the age of mantras has passed, and that we have entered the age of art-pop instead. That would be okay if we had outstanding musicianship, ori­ginal and memorable melodic lines, or gorgeous vocal hooks — instead, we have tasteful musi­cianship, traditional melodic lines, and such timidly understated vocal hooks that it's almost like having no vocal hooks whatsoever. First time I sat through the record, I believe the melodies just managed to slip through my perception centers altogether; second time, I had my mind nets all polished and ready, but still ended up with slim pickings. I mean, something like ʽMorning Shadowsʼ is really nothing but dream-pop atmosphere: falsetto sweetness, soft guitar jangle, brushed percussion, light summer breeze that fades away as quickly as it comes. Pleasant, but definitely not the reason I'd endorsed Cass McCombs in his original artistic campaign.

Honestly, I do not think this album can seriously catch anybody's eye until the seventh song: ʽCrick In My Neckʼ is the first one to have a silly, but fun chorus, focusing on the protagonist's «body problems» preventing him from floating away in his imaginary psychedelic world. At the very least, this tune actually conforms to what we expect of a pop song — all the previous ones, while also pretending to be pop songs, do not. It helps that the song is propelled by a strong beat and plenty of Townshend-esque power chords, but it is the "brother, could you wait a sec? crick in my neck, crick in my neck!" climactic bit that makes all the difference.

From there on, the songwriting seems to take a turn for the better — ʽFull Moon Or Infinityʼ has an exciting contrast between low-key verses, falsetto choruses, and folksy acoustic picking with a troubled message; ʽWindfallʼ is a welcome return to ultra-slow waltzing tempos where Cass' vocal powers are finally laid out for all to see; and ʽWheel Of Fortuneʼ at least has sonic depth, with several layers of instrumental and vocal overdubs, to provide a good finale. I could not describe any of these songs as «outstanding» on any level, but at least they sound like composi­tions that care about surprising the listener, which is far more than I could say about the first half of the album, with all those telling titles like ʽPetrified Forestʼ (yes, much of that stuff really does sound petrified).

On the whole, Dropping The Writ is an even bigger disappointment than PREfection. Part of the blame, I guess, lies on the strange decision to de-individualize the vocals — there's so much echo, reverb, and other effects placed on them throughout the record, often quite gratuitously, that you almost get the impression of an artist intentionally sabotaging his greatest asset (like Eric Clapton renouncing the status of a guitar god or something like that). Obligatory kudos for trying to branch out, of course, but branching out at the expense of losing something precious without gaining anything is hardly a smart move.

Cass McCombs: Prefection

CASS McCOMBS: PREFECTION (2005)

1) Equinox; 2) Subtraction; 3) Multiple Suns; 4) Tourist Woman; 5) Sacred Heart; 6) She's Still Suffering; 7) Cuckoo; 8) Bury Mary; 9) City Of Brotherly Love; 10) All Your Dreams May Come True.

Already he is moving away from the formula established on A — only a few songs here, such as ʽCuckooʼ and the closing ʽAll Your Dreams Come Trueʼ, give us the same dreamy tempos and repetitive verses... and I sort of miss it. The general idea here is that if you speed up the tempos, pump out a bit more energy, throw in even more instruments (often bringing the atmosphere to Phil Spector kind of standards), and make your vocal melodies more similar to Roy Orbison pop than to Leonard Cohen balladeering, this gives you an entire new face. And it does, but somehow it does not feel as uniquely enchanting as it did on the first record. Maybe because deep-booming dream-pop with lush overtones is something that is constantly on the market, be it courtesy of British Sea Power or Sufjan Stevens, while something as ridiculously simple and entrancing as "I heard my Master, spoke with your Master..." is not. Or maybe some people are born for captiva­ting simplicity and some people are born for challenging complexity. I have no idea.

Anyway, that is not to say that Prefection, or, rather, PREfection, as they prefer to stylize it, is bad or boring. In fact, Cass is good at carefully preserving his essence while pouring it into a new bottle — one offered to him by the 4AD label, to which he was now signed, and given 4AD's emphasis on all things dreamy, from Cocteau Twins to Dead Can Dance, the shift in style may have come automatically and subconsciously. ʽEquinoxʼ greets us with big bashing drums, deep echoes, a subliminal synth river tone that runs through it, and vocals that are just as beautiful as they used to be, but are now so echoey and delicate that sometimes you almost feel them rather than hear them. Meanwhile, the lyrics become even more cabbalistic than they used to be ("deep in the heart of Fontainebleau / the marriage of a whore and a Jew"? which hidden episode in French history have I missed?), and I prefer to distance myself from them altogether and simply enjoy the sentimental mysticism of it all. If there's black magic involved, I don't want to know, but the melody certainly suggests nothing of the kind.

On ʽSubtractionʼ, he takes the base rhythm of ʽYou Can't Hurry Loveʼ and, again, adapts it for his own purposes, as he does with a lots of things subsequently — except that ʽSubtractionʼ has no catchy chorus; instead, just as the prolonged synth tone colored ʽEquinoxʼ, so is ʽSubtractionʼ colored by equally long-winded organ notes, giving the song a religious rather than amorous aura and culminating in a howl of "please leave me alone!" that subtly suggests, like ʽA Comedianʼ on the previous record, that the artist does have painful concerns of his own, and is not always re­signed to the role of outside observer.

The musical experiments, rooted in accumulated experience, continue with ʽMultiple Sunsʼ, spun around a martial bassline and prog-rockish synthesizers in the background; ʽTourist Womanʼ, the man's first attempt at a really fast song, with hideously distorted guitars, a frantic rhythm track shamelessly appropriated from The Jam's ʽPrivate Hellʼ; ʽSacred Heartʼ, all jangly-like and soulful and sounding like The Smiths with extra Mellotron; and ʽShe's Still Sufferingʼ, with the biggest wall-of-sound on the album, largely due to the overpowering drums and the keyboards and vocal harmonies now completely taking over the guitars — with wave-like / veil-like psyche­delic textures that sound like My Bloody Valentine with keyboards.

Sorry, that might just be one too many references out there, but this is also what constitutes the record's problem — it brings on too many outside associations instead of focusing squarely on Mr. McCombs and his own distillation of reality. Where A had the balance just right, on PREfection he sometimes ends up lost in his own songs, trying, perhaps, too hard to gain respect as a musi­cian at the expense of standing his own ground as an artist. Oh, and one obvious influence I still have to mention (sorry) is Wilco — that mix of surrealist electronics with a country-pop sensi­bility that was so lauded in the case of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is evidently inspiring the introduc­tions to ʽSacred Heartʼ and ʽAll Your Dreams May Come Trueʼ, the latter of which melodically sounds inspired by ʽThings We Said Todayʼ. Okay, I'll shut up now.

I like each of these songs — am not enthralled by any of them, but they're tasteful, original, and deep enough to earn an unquestionable thumbs up. But I guess they also illustrate how doggone hard it is for an obviously talented artist to make a mind-blowing record in the 21st century, and, perhaps, explain why for so many talented artists of the 21st century their first album turns out to be their best — it is the one album that comes to them totally naturally; as they begin to force themselves to come up with something that expands on the beginnings, though, they immediately fall upon well-trodden paths and become less «themselves» and more of a pale mix of themselves with somebody else. Still, let us not allow too much theorizing to distract us from the simple melancholic beauty of ʽCuckooʼ or the grandiose scope of ʽCity Of Brotherly Loveʼ (a song where I do not understand even a single line, except for "yes I've read my Plato, too", which, however, does not make life for you any better even if you've also read your Plato).

On a final note, be sure to turn your player off right at the end of the musical part of ʽAll Your Dreamsʼ, because, as a bonus, you get six minutes of street noises dominated by a car siren that will not go off. Apparently, six minutes of a car siren making hell in the middle of a busy street is supposed to symbolize something, and you are welcome to spend the rest of your life decoding that symbolism, or debating the issue of whether you are more partial to dumb artists or intelli­gent artists... and thinking about the thin line that separates ones from others.

Cass McCombs: A

CASS McCOMBS: A (2003)

1) I Went To The Hospital; 2) Bobby, King Of Boys Town; 3) What Isn't Nature; 4) AIDS In Africa; 5) A Comedian Is Someone Who Tells Jokes; 6) Gee, It's Good To Be Back Home; 7) Meet Me Here At Dawn; 8) When The Bible Was Wrote; 9) My Pilgrim Dear; 10) Bedding Down Post-Xmastime; 11) My Master.

Oh no, not another modern day American singer-songwriter. Having stuck around both the West and the East Coast for several years, and eventually being picked up by some tiny record label in Baltimore or somewhere, and having also had the distinction to be one of the very last discoveries by John Peel before the radio waves went silent, Cass McCombs finally got around to recording his first LP in 2003 — one that he called A, out of humble respect either for a twenty-three year old record by Jethro Tull or the anonymous creator of the Latin alphabet. As far as I understand, nobody even noticed it back at the time. How could they? With a title like that, it'll easily slip through even all the most advanced search engines.

Fortunately, now, in retrospect, we are all entitled to its pleasures, because it does indeed happen to be one of the finest singer-songwriter albums of the year 2003, and maybe even of the entire decade, and, heck, who knows? it's getting darn hard and darner harder for anybody to come out with an amazing singer-songwriter album these days. But somehow, McCombs, with the help of his largely unknown backing team (the only player I know is guitarist Chris Cohen, formerly of Deerhoof), has succeeded in crafting quite a formidable experience. Clearly influenced by several generations of previous songwriters, he has amalgamated many of their strengths, and still managed to put his own scent marks all over the place.

The base magic is simple. McCombs writes «spells» rather than songs: most of these tracks, 3 to 5-6 minutes long in duration, reveal their complete structures very quickly, and then simply spin the same yarn for several cycles — the Dylan/Cohen manner of functioning. Nor is there any­thing particularly challenging or innovative about these cycles: sometimes it's just one musical / vocal phrase, taken out of the folk / country / pop woodpile, which in most contexts would indi­cate laziness and lack of talent. But with McCombs, somehow, it is different, and the answer lies not even in the lyrics (honestly, for the first couple of listens I did not even begin paying atten­tion to the actual words), but in the sphere of personality.

First and foremost, the guy's got a beautiful voice. Not as technically accomplished, perhaps, as those of the late great Buckley family, but with a clear, fresh ring vaguely reminiscent of Jeff's, and with an added humorous twinkle of his own, which makes all the difference. The songs range from deeply soulful to ironically playful, but there's a seed of soulfulness in the playfulness and vice versa: he is expressive, he is caring, and he has a sense of humor. Unlike so many broken-hearted songwriters who have threatened to lower the broken heart value to near-dumping levels, McCombs is not whiny or hysterical — if any of these songs could be called manipulative, they are subtly, rather than cheaply so, and the man is able to achieve a great balance between classic starry-eyed romanticism and a modern day attitude without making himself look too pompous or too hyper-intelectually cynical.

The musical arrangements are also subtle, not amazing per se, but working very well to his ad­vantage. Instead of sticking to acoustic guitar or going defiantly lo-fi with noise and sludge, he goes for a loud, but clean electric sound, with wall-of-sound elements, big crashing drums, seve­ral guitar parts, old-fashioned organ, and plenty of echo. Oh, and did I mention the slow tempos? Most of the tunes really take their time, sometimes dragging down to a mortally wounded crawl (ʽA Comedian Is Someone Who Tells Jokesʼ), yet it all works out to his complete advantage — on ʽComedianʼ, for instance, it helps him to gain even more power over the listener with lilting arches of vocal modulation; the way he intones that particular title makes me think of the song as the 21st century's ʽDeath Of A Clownʼ, and it might even go deeper than the Dave Davies tune.

No song better illustrates how little do the actual lyrics matter than the closing number, ʽMy Masterʼ — four minutes of simplistic strum and mono-dialog that goes like this, "I heard my Master... spoke with your Master... I wonder what for?.. was it in commerce?.. very odd, isn't it?.. very odd indeed", and on and on and on. It's literally a song about nothing about nothing, but it manages to entrance me for four minutes, like some mystical lullaby where all that matters is the tone of the voice... and, oh, what a perfect tone for a lullaby.

If the album closes with a lullaby (that is as sweet as it is formally meaningless), it opens with a big soulful splash — ʽI Went To The Hospitalʼ is a great way to make your solemn peace with God without saying a single word about this directly. It's a big risk, really, to open your career with such a solemn gesture, but in this case it is more of a risk that none of your subsequent career will match the awesome opening rather than you are going to fall flat on your face with your very first step. Again, you might tear out occasional bits of cool lyrics, like "is it dying that terrified you, or just being dead?", but the song might as well have been wordless — what matters is the wave-form of each verse and how the guy is steering his sonic ship on top of each wave and then gracefully bringing it down. Beautiful.

Almost every song on here works at some level. He may be pleading and vulnerable and doom-sensing (ʽMeet Me Here At Dawnʼ), or he might sound like an Everly brother stuck in a loop and loving it (ʽBobby, King Of Boystownʼ), or he can give the impression of a resigned sage sitting on top of the hill and watching the world go to pieces (ʽAIDS In Africaʼ — much of the song consists simply of chanting its title, as a symbolic representation of everything that went wrong, and it's totally enthralling), or he can slow the tempo even further down to give a chilling portrait of an individual striving to make an emotional difference despite all of his vital systems having ground down to a near-complete halt (ʽBedding Down Post-Xmastimeʼ — that's the way I hear it without delving too deep into the actual lyrics, anyway).

By the end of it all, you probably won't have a clear idea of how all these pieces assemble to­gether in a cohesive portrait; but if you are left unimpressed, or, at least, without a definite under­standing that you have just heard something special, just try to keep listening — I cannot guaran­tee a spiritual connection for everybody, of course, but as far as I'm concerned, this guy's got ten times more spirituality in him than Conor Oberst and Justin Vernon combined, and the fact that the modern world would rather choose those two as their role models than the much less known Cass is... well, it's just one of those facts. The worst thing I can say about A, now, is that the artist would have a hell of a hard time trying to top it in the future, but, naturally, in this particular case it merely translates into an even stronger thumbs up.