EASE DOWN THE ROAD

 4 Stars

Drag City Records’ triad of post-Highway 61 Revisited songwriters – David Berman, Will Oldham and Bill Callahan – have arguably written some of the most poignant and poetic lyrics since Bob Dylan stopped counting syllables. Like Dylan, Berman (Silver Jews), Oldham (Palace, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy) and Callahan (Smog) have always focused their art on the infinite ways words can be utilized to get across a thought, feeling, mood, belief or story. Also similar to Dylan, none of the Drag City boys would’ve made it into a show choir or Beach Boys cover band. Needless to say, they sing from their hearts and heads rather than their guts.

While the other two songstuds are surely entirely worthy of lengthy dissection, the songsmith in question so far in 2007 is Callahan who just released Woke On a Whaleheart, his first album not adorning his 20-year-old Smog moniker. Why the change of artistic handle? No one not named Bill Callahan knows for certain, but the subtle style changes dripping throughout Whaleheart’s 10 songs are a good place to start.

Fitting somewhere between Berman’s puzzle piece lyrics and Oldham’s skewed stories and heartache is Callahan’s open-to-interpretation brand of writing. Though there are far too many brilliant lines and characters on Whaleheart to mention, “We were swimming in the rivers of the rains of our days before we knew / And it’s hard to explain what I was doing or thinking before you,” from the song “From The Rivers to the Ocean” (one of Whaleheart’s many qualifiers for best-penned song of 2007), starts the album out nicely. The song features Callahan’s trademark deep voice (sweet, rich and stern, just like any quintessential father figure), strong piano, violins and a slew of other pitch-perfect flourishes.

Next up is “Footprints,” a song unlike any other in Smog’s enormous catalog. Callahan sounds energized and full of renewed spirit. It’s another great, great song, but I have limited space and four more “song of the year” candidates to rave over, including Whaleheart’s lead single, “Diamond Dancer.” Also unlike any other song in Callahan’s catalog, “Diamond Dancer” features a prominent rhythm section, strong soul-styled female backing vocals and the mood-stealing violin work of Elizabeth Warren. The real highlight here and all through Whaleheart – as it should be – is Callahan’s vocals and lyrics. He offers sing-along listeners just enough to follow and dissect, but never nearly enough to sum up. Like the majority of Callahan’s work, “Diamond Dancer” introduces you to a character, tells you just enough to want to know more before brilliantly leaving the rest for listeners to ponder. After six or seven spins, “Diamond Dancer” should be a strong contender for “song of the year” for any fan of lean, poetic songwriting.

Whaleheart’s third masterpiece, “Sycamore,” is a tender, clue-heavy song as accessible as any in Callahan’s catalog, complete with brilliant lines like “All you want to do is be the fire part of fire.” Once again, Callahan presents listeners with what feels like a small piece of a grand novel, acting as a starting point for anyone with an active imagination.

And finally we have the instant classic, “The Wheel.” Callahan delivers every sung line (beginning with the bewildering “The wheel has turned one full circle / Time for my meal of wood”) with a sing-along-friendly spoken rendition. The song is a perfect indie-era update of classic country music, complete with sweet female backing vocals, distant electric picking and bouncy bass lines. The lyrics are cryptic yet quotable (”I’d die in your jails Lord / But you’d die by my laws Lord / I think you’ve got it worse / No rebel I Lord / I follow the river / When I’m lost”) and, as always, full of both questions and insight.

Other standouts include every other unmentioned song on Whaleheart, especially the most modern song of modern times, “A Man Needs a Woman or a Man to Be a Man.” But, alas, we’re long out of room and need to wrap up the beautifully bewildering Whaleheart. In summary, there is a world of characters living within Woke on a Whaleheart, entirely open to interpretation and always warmer than Santa’s lap. I love Dylan, but Callahan’s writing and musicianship on Whaleheart make the old man’s recent work sound uninspired and flat. That, friends, is very hard to do. Pick up Woke on a Whaleheart, listen to it six or seven times and tell me it’s not one of the best written album since the Jews’ Bright Flight.

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