Yahoo! Music Review

Released on 05/03/07
Label: Radiate/Virgin

For proof that the Bush regime is leaving indelible dirty thumbprints on the hearts of impressionable young Americans, look no further than Willy Mason. Not only does the 21-year-old Martha's Vineyard native have a voice old beyond his years - that of an ageing whisky-soaked cowboy - but he has also produced one of the most downcast albums of 2007.

To British ears - accustomed to protest singers cloaking their manifestos in irony - there's something quaintly earnest and out-of-time about the lad who was discovered by chance singing a song on a local radio station when still at high school. Conor 'Bright Eyes' Oberst's indie label released his debut 2004 debut "Where The Humans Eat", a high-profile support slot with the equally world-weary Radiohead pushed album sales to noticeable levels, and this follow-up comes in the wake of a criticised 'sell-out' move to Virgin.

As with its predecessor, "If The Ocean Gets Rough" has no time for narratives about driving cars and scoring with girls. Fear, surrender and fading hope in the face of current world affairs is the timbre of this acoustic album that's leavened only by some meaty country rhythms and skeins of radiant banjo. "We Can Be Strong", for example, has a dig at both rehab culture and consumerism: "In the end they couldn't sell me grace / And they can't sell me tomorrow".

"Save Myself" rails at US domestic policy starting with the perceived neglect of the flooded New Orleans: "They sabotaged the levee / Killed gris gris (voodoo dolls synonymous with the city) / I live in a country without history / One that buried its roots with its identity / We still are searching for liberty." Proletariat outrage at impending ecological disaster informs "When The Leaves Have Fallen": "When we've poisoned every last threatening beast / When the ocean swallows up the priests on higher ground / Will we sleep sound while the rich shake in their shoes?"

Meanwhile, "The World That I Wanted", a sparse tearjerker about a strained father-son relationship, offers a metaphor for the East Coast liberal conviction that the country lacks a Kennedy type figure of authority. Phew. And there's little respite in the non-political songs either. Self-doubt and insecurity colours everything: whether it's the "heavy heart" and "shadows" of the forlorn title track or "Riptide"'s unprepossessing - "I guess you could say that this is me". "When The River Moves On" is an astonishingly bleak tale of growing up from someone who's only just reached the age he can legally buy a beer.

It'd be crass to insist on a sense of humour (though it's tempting - even Bob Dylan could make jokes about shagging Elizabeth Taylor) but if Barack Obama gets in, could Willy Mason please consider lightening up a little?

    by Anna Britten