John Grant, Michigan boy:
Expansive state of the nation address from singer-songwriter in exile. By Victoria Segal. John Grant ★★★★ Boy From Michigan
CD/DL/LP
THE FIVE-and-dime, the Tastee Freeze, tilta-whirls, candy and pop: at first glance, the soda fountain landscape of John Grant’s fifth album wouldn’t cause James Stewart much consternation. Less comforting, maybe, is the Throbbing Gristle whirr opening the album, the title track’s reference to walking through a cemetery, or the friend who offers advice to the 11-year-old Grant before he moved to Colorado: “You’re just a simple boy from Michigan/And they’ll be doing everything they can to win/So please, please don’t ever let your guard down.” Then there’s the ominous machine pulse of The Rusty Bull, a song about the giant metal sculpture that spanned the entrance to the scrapyard where Grant’s father would hunt for car parts, its Minotaur frame later haunting his son’s dreams. Suddenly, it’s not such a wonderful life.
Recorded in Iceland with producer Cate Le Bon as the world started to shut down and the US elections loomed, Boy From Michigan maintains Grant’s facility with the psychologically acute self-portrait while setting him on a wider canvas. From his island vantage point, he takes on America, not just via the filthy electro-economics of Your Portfolio or The Only Baby’s dark piano satire, but also through the more subtle landscape of childhood memory and adolescent pain, the Boy From Michigan back to have his say. County Fair, almost floating away on a cloud of cotton candy synths and Thornton Wilder quaintness, is mined with poignant yearning for a better world, while Mike And Julie, a regretful love song to two friends, describes the fear and pressure of growing up gay in an intolerant small town.
There are moments of levity: the nerdtechno Best In Me lists extravagantly-named moths as a metaphor for metamorphosis, while Rhetorical Figure sees Grant gleefully putting the vice into literary device. “Epizeuxis/epizeuxis/epizeuxis,” he barks, which, once you’ve Googled it, turns out to be a good joke. Generously, you could say it was an attack on anti-intellectualism, but it might just be a chance to show off. Given what’s gone before, however – all those unsayable and unspoken things – that’s its own reward. Boy From Michigan is Grant in panoramic mode, looking back and looking forward to create his biggest picture yet.