I have to start out by saying this: I’ve always thought Jay Farrar was the better half of Uncle Tupelo, and apart from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot have found Son Volt to be the superior post-breakup band. Jeff Tweedy certainly has his thing going on, and I don’t begrudge anyone their excitement over the new Wilco record, but I have been far more expectant about The Search, Farrar’s follow-up to the good, but a little scattered Okemah And The Melody Of Riot. After hearing it, I am not in the least disappointed.
Farrar’s vocal range is as limited as ever, and his lyrics almost as cryptic, which is too be expected (and really, to be hoped for). But this is a more diverse collection of songs than most of his other work. At times more quick-paced and full (“The Picture” and the title track, for example), at others almost choral, he manages to extract more out of the alt-country genre than you might ever imagine was there. It’s not a radical change of sound, but it is a radical investigation of what goes into his sound. He takes it all apart piece by piece and reconstructs from the bottom up.
The melancholy butts heads with the exuberant, lost souls find themselves face to face with dead soldiers, autumn leaves fall gently around a couple holding hands on a park bench, you stare out the window as the country flies by and you wonder what lies just beyond the horizon – in the America that lives out of sight of the interstate highways. Ultimately, the details don’t mean much – the only truly important thing is to remember that there is always another hill to climb, another corner to turn. And that this is both a blessing and a curse.
At its best, this produces songs as good as any Farrar has done. “The Picture” is the first single, and with its barrage of horns and jaunty beat, is one of the most exciting and breathless tracks I’ve heard in ages. Kicking off a string of killer songs to close out the disc, “Methamphetamine” features a guitar line to break your heart, which twines itself perfectly with plaintive vocals as good as you’ve heard since Trace. Shannon McNally stops by to harmonize on the drunken tear-jerker “Highways and Cigarettes.”
To be fair, this is not a perfect record. There are occasional missteps: the vague atmospheric-jangle of opener “Slow Hearse” doesn’t do a whole lot for me, and a few of the middle tracks could probably have been snipped without much harm. Still, part of the charm is the way Farrar dances lightly through a variety of tones and genres. And as great as “The Picture” is – the album is better for its depth of flavor.
It definitely falls into that category of records which sound far better when you listen the whole way through. Each song bleeds into the next and you begin to sense the underlying structure, the slow but subtle movement that guides each song inevitably into the next. It may be the most complete work Farrar has yet produced, which is really saying something.
Son Volt is playing in Boston on Sunday and assuming all goes as planned, I should be down there for the weekend and will hopefully get to see them.