The Brooklyn-based Texan guitarist of Big Thief returns with his fourth solo LP filled with tender, thoughtful, beautiful folk-country-rock, a tiny splash of analogue synths, joined by bandmate James Krivchenia as producer, Adrianne Lenker on backing vocals, plus guitarist Adam Brisbin and harp player Mary Lattimore. His style is still very much lovely mid-tempo laments, melancholy and twangy country guitars, self-analysis, Biblical imagery and that distinctive clear, thin, gentle voice. Intimate and relatable, opener Gasoline is a tender acoustic strum with rolling drums with plenty of hi-hat about making up words while making love, capturing the dizzying whirlwind feel of a new romance. But it’s not all Pretty Flowers, the skipping love song which muses on the nature of love. On the powerful, oddly catchy walking pace On Can I Mend It ? he reveals another side - after a row with his lover, his narrator describes losing control and smashing his fist into a wall, breaking finger and her heart. He then asks: “Can I mend it? Can I make it whole?/Now that you’ve seen into the dark side of my soul.” It’s a bold, dark, sinister side to when a relationship can seem to have a sweet appearance. Ring of Fire, of with titular echoes of the famous Cash country number is very different, a tender love song also about his craft: “Music is in my soul / Rock and roll is in my blood / So many years I've bled in the red for the love / But all that love I've found in the sound and the songs / I'm saving for my girl.”
Other notable tracks include the bluesy rock of Soul Feeling and the 50s western talky and whistling styles of Worms, which lyrically echoes that era: “My baby don’t fight with me.” Heart In The Mirror, a syncopated rhythmic number with ripples of synth sounds, feels like a veiled political comment as well as personal one, reflecting back at heart of the album title. “Lost my voice singing about evil and the people that I've lost / Backwards love is easier to read / When it's tattooed on my heart in the mirror … Many years, I've lived in fear of bullies and critics / But now I know the thing they loathe / Is seeing their own fear in the mirror / Their fear in the mirror, fear in the mirror.” Light and dark, with secrets and confessions, candid and heartfelt, it’s another beautiful, bittersweet release. Meek returns to tour again with Big Thief, a band that remain fluid, highly functional, harmonious creative unit also when fronted by Meek or Lenker doing their solo albums. Out on 4AD.
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