Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 30/05/05
Label: Domino

An Old West sense of survival and redemption colours Bill Callahan's umpteenth (16th if you count the early home-made stuff and a singles collection; 11th otherwise) offering of lo-fi, country-tinged acoustica.

"Bury me in wood and I'll splinter/Bury me in stone and I'll quake/Bury me in water and I'll geyser/Bury me in fire and I'm going to Phoenix" ('Say Valley Maker') is just one near-biblical lyric in an album crammed with references to nature and the elements. Just how much all these rivers, valleys, birds, pines, plateaus and dams have to do with personal 're-birth', as the press release would have it, and how much to do with location (Callahan lives in Austin, Texas and "A River" was recorded in lush countryside nearby at Willie Nelson's Penerdales Studio) is anyone's guess. The result is as pure and stark musically as lyrically, with Callahan on nylon-strung acoustic guitar, Jim White on drums, and subtle dabs of violin, piano and Joanna Newsom's harp. Callahan's oaky, Johnny Cash-like vocals are delivered so close he might be sitting on your lap - every syllable audible.

It's uncharacteristically upbeat, too: dark feelings are quelled with a glance at some majestic mountain or other, or are reduced to symbols: "The Well", for example, is a seven-minute narrative on finding an abandoned well and yelling "f*ck all y'all" into its black depths. Family life is warmly, nostalgically evoked on several occasions: "I love my mother/I love my father/I love my sisters too/ I bought this guitar to pledge my love, to pledge my love to you," states "Rock Bottom Riser".

Thankfully there are sufficient moments of bathos to suggest Smog lives in the real world and not an episode of "Little House On The Prairie". "Oh to live in the country with the chickens…and those other things," muses "Running And Loping", while uplifting final track "Let Me See The Colts" neatly distils the album's pine-scented nature vs dirty reality theme into: "Let me see the colts that will run next year/Show them to a gambling man thinking of the future". An intelligent step forward from a unique and prolific troubadour.

    by Anna Britten