At the merch booth at Centro-matic shows, they have a graphic representation of all of Will Johnson's recorded output, with axes like "Country--Rock" and "Mellow--[something else that I can't remember]." I would put this new record sonically close to South San Gabriel's recent The Carlton Chronicles: this is definitely the most musically complex album, at least under the Centro-matic nom de guerre. Though SSG will throw in a good bit of slide guitar, and Centro always has piano and an occasional violin, this is the first appearance of synth (heavily backing up the piano on this song), absent just a touch on Distance & Clime. The song structures, too, are denser than the usual verse-chorus-bridge that Will generally operates in. Lyrically, this is between Will's solo Murder Of Tides and the last Centro album, Love You Just The Same. The songs are obtuse as usual, but not enough to obscure the rural, sort of Southern Gothic melancholy pervading a good bit of the album. These are songs of departures, reflection and maturation, which has really been the progression through the Johnson oeuvre: the "twenty years stuck in my dreams, undefined."
1 comment:
ouevre = oeuvre. learn your french buster.
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