featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
April 7, 2024
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
Age can be a tricky thing. The quality that seems admirable and appropriate as a youth can come across as antisocial and cranky as we age. Artistically, we are challenged to evolve or to risk becoming a stale, predictable stereotype, or worse.
At age 56, Joe Pernice has been making music under one name or another for more than half a lifetime: Scud Mountain Boys, Chappaquiddick Skyline, New Mendicants, Roger Lion, Pernice Brothers. Each brought its own stylistic emphasis, with the constant being Pernice's own literate, classic pop vision. The songwriter's bio calls it, songs that convey complex ideas via catchy melodies and clever rhymes. Joe Pernice has also been tagged by Allmusic as a witty misanthrope and pop savant. Across eight albums with Pernice Brothers, he has been clever, cynical, melancholy, critically introspective, and acerbic, all the while creating a body of consistently listenable work.
Following a partnership with Sub Pop, the Pernice Brothers were released on their own Ashmont label. Last year, New West Records contacted Joe with a proposal to issue a 25th Anniversary edition of 1998's excellent Overcome By Happiness, establishing a relationship that has resulted in New West hosting the act's eighth project, Who Will You Believe. While the twelve-track record follows in the tradition of their previous LPs, it's as diverse an assortment of songs as Pernice Brothers have created, in addition to seemingly marking a reorientation of Joe Pernice's perspective as a middle-aged writer.
Who Will You Believe is not a full-scale parting of the clouds. The title cut launches the record: I fell in love with the possible world / Then I smashed my heart against the stones. With its ringing electric guitar line and reaching chorus vocal, "Who Will You Believe" recalls Gary Louris and the Jayhawks. It's a terrific re-introduction to an act that has been largely absent for too long a time. Serving as producer, Joe Pernice's arrangements are largely uncluttered, granting space for the song to succeed on its own terms. With a bouncy piano and bright horn flourishes, "Look Alive" practices self-effacing gallows humor: You can clip a little off the top, that's fine / But don't rouge my cheeks / I'll never look alive. Pernice's work sounds great with a complement of horns and strings, but the heart of his band remains his brother Bob, Peyton Pinkerton, and Patrick Berkery.
Who Will You Believe is stylistically varied, recalling 80s Robyn Hitchcock on "Hey Guitar", replete with a racing beat and manic guitar solo: I was king, taken down by a broken string. "Man Of Means" incorporates Revolver-era drums and bass, and a playful chorus: Do it / Did it / Done it / Do-it-did-it-done-it-do-it-did-it-done-it. One of the collection's high points brings back Neko Case, a guest on Pernice Brothers' 2019 Spread the Feeling. Her country-flavored collab with Joe Pernice, "I Don't Need That Anymore", is a course in duet composition. Neko acknowledges, I don't feel the pull of sirens singing anymore, both singers accepting the cooling of their relationship, or at least an evolution from the days when You were neon trouble / All wreck and rubble / Calmest eyes of any hurricane. Elsewhere, "December In Her Eyes" finds Pernice trying his hand at soul, a'la Jeb Loy Nichols with sighing strings and stately horns.
Joe Pernice is a classic songwriter, a throwback soul whose facility with words and melody hail from a place beyond genre. On Who Will You Believe, this might be most evident to a pair of tracks that portray him in quite a different light. "A Song For Sir Robert Helpmann" is a brief instrumental interlude, a sweet waltz carried on piano and strings like a cinematic theme from a motion picture soundtrack. "Purple Rain" closes the LP on a remarkable note, while addressing the loss of friends and family, including David Berman of Silver Jews and Purple Mountains: Here's a man one heartbeat from a ghost. His fragile voice alongside a simple acoustic strum, soon joined by heart-tugging strings, then low brass. The final minute of the album features the choral ensemble Choir! Choir! Choir! carrying the chorus for a unexpectedly sincere and moving finale. Pernice has commented, it's about the dread of potentially losing intangible things that I thought would always be there. It comes off as an almost daring risk for Joe Pernice, a heart-on-sleeve moment that succeeds in leaving listeners with the impression that there's much more to hear from this one-time misanthrope.
Taking a quick look at A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster, it must first be noted that John Moreland dropped a new collection with no prepub. We begin our trip through Visitor on this week's Episode (Old Omens). One of Our Fair Square State's longest-tenured bands, Slim Cessna's Auto Club are planning a new album. May 31 is the planned date for Kinnery Of Lupercalia: Buell Legion. Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore collaborated for a full-length project back in 2018. The legendary duo will release a follow-up on June 21, TexiCali (Yep Roc). It has been about a decade since Beachwood Sparks last shared a full-length collection. They will rectify that with the release of Across the River Of Stars on July 19 (Curation). Blake Christiana and Yarn return to the fold with their first record in eight years. Born Blessed Grateful & Alive (Symphonic) is slated for a July 26 arrival.
- Ana Egge, "Door Won't Close" Sharing In the Spirit (StorySound, May 17)
- John Moreland, "Blue Dream Carolina" Visitor (Old Omens, 24) D
- Shannon McNally, "Ceremony" single (Queen Maeve, 24) D
- Iron & Wine, "Anyone's Game" Light Verse (Sub Pop, Apr 26)
- Erin Mat & Paul, "Jesus Was a Crossmaker" Jesus + More (Tableaux, 24) D
- Avett Brothers, "Country Kid" Avett Brothers (Ramseur, May 17)
- Angus & Julia Stone, "Losing You" Cape Forestier (Nettwerk, May 10)
- Phosphorescent, "Fences" Revelator (Verve, 24)
- Rosali, "My Kind" Bite Down (Merge, 24)
- Woods, "Day Before Your Night" Five More Flowers EP (Woodsist, 24) D
- Old 97s, "Somebody" American Primitive (ATO, 24)
- Will Kimbrough, "Other Side" For the Life Of Me (Daphne, May 3) D
- Kelsey Waldon, "Uncle Pen (ft Amanda Shires)" There's Always a Song (Oh Boy, May 10)
- Kaia Kater, "In Montreal (ft Allison Russell)" Strange Medicine (Free Dirt, May 17)
- Swamp Dogg, "Count the Days (ft Jenny Lewis)" Blackgrass: From West Virginia To 125th Street (Oh Boy, May 31)
- Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, "Dogbane" Revelations (Abeyance, 24)
- Kyle Kimbrell, "Interstate Living" Easy Truths (Cornelius Chapel, 24)
- Beachwood Sparks, "Torn In Two" Across the River Of Stars (Curation, Jul 19) D
- Dustin Kensrue, "Heart Of Sedona" Desert Dreaming (Vagrant, 24)
- Katie Pruitt, "Self Sabotage" Mantras (Rounder, 24)
- Jesse Daniel, "Comin' Apart At the Seams" Countin' the Miles (Lightning Rod, Jun 7) D
- Orville Peck, "Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other (ft Willie Nelson)" Stampede (Warner, 24) D
- Kimmie Rhodes, "If You Closed Your Eyes (ft Alejandro Escovedo)" Hypnotized (Sunbird, 24) D
- Charley Crockett, "Solitary Road" $10 Cowboy (Son Of Davy, Apr 26)
- Kim Richey, "Joy Rider" Every New Beginning (Yep Roc, May 24)
^ Pernice Brothers, "What We Had" Who Will You Believe (New West, 24)
- A Savage, "I Can't Shake the Stranger Out Of You" Loft Sessions EP (Rough Trade, 24) D
- Marcus King, "Me Or Tennessee" Mood Swings (American, 24)
- Black Keys, "On the Game" Ohio Players (Nonesuch, 24)
- Lou Turner, "Pacing the Cage" Imaginational Anthems XIII: Songs Of Bruce Cockburn (Tompkins Square, 24)
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