Josh Ritter's "Sermon on the Rocks" coming October 16

Every Josh Ritter album is written with a new voice. It’s rare that an artist changes styles with each album while still maintaining exactly the things that make him unique, but Josh often pulls it off. Sure, the voice he used in his debut self-titled album wasn’t his, it was Bob Dylan’s, but basically since then, there’s been new characters singing to us every couple of years.

Album Review: Blitzen Trapper - "All Across This Land"

It’s hard to say what happened to Blitzen Trapper, because in reality, nothing happened to Blitzen Trapper. They were a topic of discussion at one point, and since then they’ve done nothing but release inventive, ambitious, and at-times wonderful albums at a near prolific rate (2012 was the first year we didn’t get new tracks from the band since 2006). Typically bands that explore as many different sounds as Eric Earley and his Oregon-based quintet have, from space cowboy punk music to psychedelic folk to country rap, to a full-album live cover of Neil Young’s Harvest, get more critical doting forced upon them. 

One at a Time - "The Pretender" (1976) by Jackson Browne

What is One at a Time? Check out the introduction here.

#391 "The Pretender" (1976) by Jackson Browne

Since I went to see Jackson Browne last night at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, NJ, the man is on my mind, so today I’m going to cover The Pretender, from 1976, listed at #391 on Rolling Stone’s list.

One at a Time: "Something Else By The Kinks" (1972) by The Kinks

What is One at a Time? Check out the introduction here.

#288 "Something Else By The Kinks" (1972) by The Kinks

Well, my old computer broke, and I lost most of what I had written, but I'm finally starting to catch up.

When I left off, I had slowly chugged through 23 of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums, with The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan as my number one, and The Slim Shady LP as my number twenty-three. Because I'm so far behind, I'm gonna start with a couple of albums that I know well enough to write about without listening to them for a week straight.

Josh Ritter - Getting Ready to Get Down

Fans of Josh Ritter know how clever he can be, whether he’s singing about bones or orbitals, dogs or empty hearts or love in nuclear war. Perhaps he is at his best when discussing complex, polarizing topics like religion in “Thin Blue Flame,” or “Galahad.” But Ritter clearly outdoes himself with his latest single “Getting Ready to Get Down.”

Often faith is in the background, or at least not always explicitly stated up front. But now, “Get Down,” off his upcoming album “Sermon on the Rocks,” promises to be something of a takedown of religion and Christian doctrine.

The lyrics are a mouthful, and they are tight. If you don’t pay attention you might get overwhelmed, and good luck trying to keep up out loud. There is no subtlety here, with lines like “What kind of God would ever keep a girl from getting what she needs?” What she needs is sexual fulfillment, and Ritter has no qualms about stating it out in the open.

The song is disdainful of the country-clubbers and the uppity ‘ladies of the auxiliary’ who believe the protagonist – a woman who was sent off to Bible school to try to teach her chastity – is possessed by the devil and consumed by sin, for having learned about sex.

Ritter throws it all out there, laughing at the uber-conservatives who believe that “to really be a saint you’ve got to really be a virgin/Dry as a page on a King James version.” Countering that are his own beliefs, that if you want to be a good person, try being a “strength to the weak…a joy to the joyful,” and “give your love freely.

The final message is that no one can tell you who you should be, and “When you get damned in the popular opinion/It’s just another damn of the damns not given.”

If the rest of the album is along the same lines of old-school Bible bashing, then it’ll be something to look forward to.

Album Review: "All Your Favorite Bands" by Dawes

Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes

For me, love for a new Dawes album isn’t always at first sight. I can never put on their record and listen to it spin a couple times and decide that it’s solid material. I’ve found that, with all four of the band’s albums under their current name, it has been a slow build to a feeling of intensity about their work. It’s like how most serious relationships aren’t founded on a sexy haircut or a witty line; it takes time and effort, but it builds into something lasting.

            Each first listen to each of their albums has left me thinking wistfully of the previous album, or, in the case of North Hills, wishing every song could be as good as “When My Time Comes.” But something keeps bringing me back, and eventually I get to the point I was at a little while ago, where I flipped through playlists on my iPod and noticed that most queues had seven or eight Dawes songs – and all from different albums. The more I listen, the more I find things I love about each song, the more I come to appreciate what must’ve gone into the making of the album. And that, in my opinion, is the sign of a great piece of work.

"Something More Than Free" by Jason Isbell July 17, 2015