Introduction

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.
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.

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.

CHAIRLIFT

DOES YOU INSPIRE YOU (2008)
1) Garbage; 2) Planet Health; 3) Earwig Town; 4) Bruises; 5) Somewhere Around Here; 6) Evident Utensil; 7) Territory; 8) Le Flying Saucer Hat; 9) Make Your Mind Up; 10) Dixie Gypsy; 11) Don't Give A Damn; 12) Chame­leon Closet; 13) Ceiling Wax.
The first thing you read about Chairlift on Wikipedia (today) is that «Chairlift was an American synthpop band». Well... from a certain formal standpoint, this might be true: they use a lot of electronics, and a couple of the songs are based upon danceable synthesizer grooves. But if we understand this term in a very straightforward manner, then no, Chairlift were not just one more band driven by nostalgia for the Eighties and a desire to adapt the naïvely idealistic and simplis­tic futurism of that decade to our post-post-modern realities. They were much more than that — for a brief while, they were a refreshingly ambitious and daring engine of musical eclecticism; and this debut record of theirs deserves your full and undivided attention even ten years later, which is a pretty high compliment coming from me for anything released in the 2000s.
In 2008, Chairlift were a Brooklyn-based trio consisting of: hipsterly gloomy-looking, curly-haired, dishevelled Patrick Wimberly on bass and stuff; happier-looking, somewhat cleaner-sha­ven, but still dishevelled Aaron Pfenning on guitar and stuff; and retro-gorgeous, intelligent-looking, and quite tidy (in comparison to the other two) Caroline Polachek on vocals, keyboards, and stuff. Apparently, Pfenning and Polachek met together in Boulder, Colorado, which is a grand place if you're a bearded loner (hey, you can travel to Bear Peak and imagine you're Bon Iver!), but maybe not so grand if you want to make hip pop music that mixes current trends, retro influences, artsiness, and advanced progressive conscience, so they moved to Brooklyn for those ends, where they ended up picking Wimberly and... but enough trivia.
Does You Inspire You is a wonderful little record (well, no longer truly «little» since they re­issued it on CD and added three extra tracks). I have no idea who writes which parts and whether there is an individual mini-genius at work here or it's all a matter of collective spirit, but, with the exception of a few lesser tracks, this is a collection of tight, diverse, colorful, inspiring art-pop tracks that do not offer much in terms of radical innovation, but simply put together a half-bright, half-dark, deeply personalized world that manages to include a little bit of everything. I have not been able to spot any single running theme — it's more like an artistic diary for a small group of young people trying to grasp the meaning of life around them, and it's cool.
I'd guess that most people's memories of the album would revolve around ʽBruisesʼ, the closest they ever got to hitting the charts and even so, probably only because of the song being used in an Apple iPod Nano commercial. It would be anything but a bad memory — the song is a great example of their songwriting style, a set of somewhat ambiguously dark lyrics set to a catchy, cuddly melody and punctuated by Caroline's perfectly placed falsetto chirps. However, it might also give the totally wrong impression of the band as an electronic-based twee-pop outfit, where­as in reality this twee vibe of ʽBruisesʼ is but one piece of a much larger puzzle.
Because if you listen to the album properly, starting from the start, the first song is ʽGarbageʼ, which, despite the use of programmed drums and keyboards, from a purely melodic standpoint is straightforward blues-rock — a dark, sneery vibe whose distant prototype is left somewhere far behind, in Chicago's Chess Studios, perhaps, but whose essence remains the same; and on this song, Caroline Polachek sounds more like a disciple of Grace Slick than of Amelia Fletcher. It is hard to understand what the song is about — should it be understood directly, as an ecological rant? indirectly, as a political allegory? totally indirectly, as a condemnation of some particularly messy ex-boyfriend?.. better still, all three ways at once, and that's not even mentioning how much I like the overall style — the watery electric piano overlays, the little distorted guitar riff crossing the threshold midway through the song, the ghostly la-la-la harmonies, the equally ghostly and ever so slightly dissonant chimes, the vibraphone, the faint shadow of a sax solo to­wards the very end... apparently, we did begin this as a Chicago piece, but by the end, it becomes more of a lite jazz jam, never boring because they do not drag it out for too long and keep adding neat creative touches every few bars or so.
On a few other tracks, the band goes for a grand atmosphere, which is also totally believable. ʽPlanet Healthʼ is a slow combo of a funky bassline, a whole dazzling kaleidoscope of keyboard overlays, and a vocal part run through a minor vocoder effect that makes Caroline sound a bit like an alien — completely making sense for a song beginning with the line "when I arrived on Planet Health...", although the song itself is hardly a sci-fi adventure, but rather a harsh indictment of the hypocrisy of our allegedly progressive society (best verse: "I was trained in diversity / In the gar­den of puberty / Where they Heimlich maneuvered me / And they showed me how to make a baby"); if somebody is still living in the 21st century, yet misses out on the bitter irony of the "I'm feeling great tonight" chorus, then I guess I must be dreaming. Another great moody piece is ʽTerritoryʼ, where they are not afraid to advance into the territory of The Cure, Dead Can Dance, and other slow, mopey, ocean-of-sorrow bands — an anthem of self-protection and isolation, with Polachek floating over her protected territory like an aggressive, but still gorgeous ghost, while protective guitar and keyboard spirits are building up their defenses below. Brilliantly crafted — and I dare you to play it back to back with ʽBruisesʼ and then think of any other act that would have the talent / gall to release such lightness and such heaviness on the same record... well, at least in 2008.
Other as yet unchecked highlights include: ʽEvident Utensilʼ, the first single from the album that is every bit as catchy as ʽBruisesʼ, though a little less light (there's a good chance that either the silly, but unbeatable line "the most evident utensil is none other than a pencil", or the strained, border-hysterical chorus of "how hard must I try?.." will stay with you for a long, long time); ʽMake Your Mind Upʼ, which lives through an abrupt shift from an adult contemporary ballad into a rough, loud, screechy metallized R&B groove; and I even like their minor genristic excour­ses — ʽDon't Give A Damnʼ puts the Polachek stamp on country waltz, and while most people seem to hate ʽLe Flying Saucer Hatʼ, I think it's a hilarious parody on French atmospheric pop of the Mylène Farmer variety (I'm sure someone will love to pigeonhole this under the dreaded «cultural appropriation» tag, but if you love missing the point so much, be my guest). The eclec­ticism continues with the two-minute ambient-avantgarde instrumental ʽChameleon Closetʼ, and finally ends with the New Age-like finale of ʽCeiling Waxʼ — "my time has come, my day is done", she wails quietly in a tired voice, as if indeed thinking of herself as somebody who'd been temporarily assigned to visit our «Planet Health» and is now retiring back to eternity.
So what's not to like? It's clever, it's catchy, it's bursting with creativity, and it's one of those rare records that manages to sound a bit out of this world and yet fully in touch with reality. I'm gues­sing that, had the album been released and promoted in Europe rather than the States, it would have enjoyed far more commercial success — after all, they didn't just move to New York, that most Europeanized of all American outlets, for nothing — but unlike most of the stuff that hap­pened to chart in 2008, this one feels totally fresh and exciting even today, so a major thumbs up here. (Please do not run off to watch the video for ʽEvident Utensilʼ, though: as in so many cases, this is yet another situation of brilliant musical ideas desperately unmatched with anything close to a working, healthy video aesthetics! Anyway, you've been warned).