Listen & Buy.
MP3 "It's Hard to Be Humble (When You're from Alabama)"
MP3 "Tell Me Baby"
By JM for Other Music:
If you've been paying attention to Matthew Houck and his Phosphorescent releases over the past few years, enjoying the hazy, lazy Pride, essentially a solo album from 2007 that won Houck praise and comparisons to folk-Americana artists of all eras and stripes, or the much-heralded 2009 album of outlaw-period Willie Nelson covers that Houck recorded with his touring band in tow, you probably have been aware of the temperature rising and expectations flying around the release of the group's new record. Sometimes there is just a feeling in the air that an artist's time is coming, and Here's to Taking It Easy, despite the title, marks the arrival of a musician who has been knocking around for closing in on a decade, but is clearly launching a new, and much higher-profile, stage of his career. Debut single and album-opener "It's Hard to Be Humble (When You're from Alabama)" warms up with the gentle atmospherics of a pedal-steel and electric piano reminiscent of the musings of Houck's albums past, but within moments a crashing hi-hat count brings in the punch of a tight honky-tonk horn section, and it's clear this Phosphorescent is something new.
Houck's shaky, haunting whiskey-and-cigarettes voice is the same, but his songs have deepened and swelled with newfound emotion and pathos. He carries it with a confident strut and swagger that is nonetheless utterly embracing, and his band delivers a thrilling country/R&B swing that -- no exaggeration -- can hold its own with classic cuts from Jim Ford, the Stones and Neil Young. Many tracks rock and many have a lazy lope not too far removed from Phosphorescent's older sound, but with warmly layered piano, steel guitar, acoustic and whatever else fits over the gentle sway of the rhythm section, there is a lush and timeless sound here that is irresistible. Houck's subject matter is fairly standard pop fare -- love, lust and failed relationships are the norm, when 'Bama pride is on the backburner, but his imagery is as moving as is his raw voice and powerful band.
Forever stuck in my head is the broken marriage of "Mermaid Parade," as Houck tries to forget his failures in the annual bacchanalia on Coney Island. His simple story is as richly-layered as is his band's production -- in a few words he conveys the passion of love and commitment, and then two years of marriage simply slipping away, taking responsibility and not, reveling in the beautiful painted women in the parade, and wanting his ex there with him to see it all too. It is a complicated and convincing portrait of life that is too rare in pop.
"I know all about your new man, your new older, old man, and I heard that he's married. Oh, you be careful Amanda. // Yeah, I found a new friend too, and yeah she's pretty and small, goddamnit Amanda, oh god damn all. // I wound up walking, by the ocean today, there were naked women dancing, in the Mermaid Parade. Oh Amanda, did you see me today, watching those women dance, in the Mermaid Parade. And oh, Amanda, were you with me today, watching those women waltz by, in the Mermaid Parade."
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