A VULNERABLE SOUL
Let Wild Dogs Run is the sort of `emotionally complicated music' we all can use right now
A break of six years separates
Jay Sparrow's Let Wild Dogs
Run from his last album, but the timing for such a troubled, soulful, vulnerable, yet above all usefully warm recording is perfect for right now as we huddle, in one way or another, apart from each other. Beautifully produced by Victoria choir director and Juno-winner Marc Jenkins, it's thoughtfully written, and really quite worth your time — the only eternal currency.
The Edmonton-made record opens with an almost ridiculously heavy summoned-memory of skateboard youth — What We Can't Let Go — cops chasing kids digging Method Man & Redman off in some long-ago echo, which Sparrow mournfully lets go as a symbol of doing that thing we all do on the way to oblivion — move on.
More upbeat, but against a bluesy backdrop, Sparrow snarls confidently on The Rough Side Drag, a sweet little slow-rock Valentine that asserts when the smoke clears, “I got ya, babe.” It's a reminder to be grateful, if only because it makes our brains happier than typing in ALL CAPS.
Yr Maker slides back into the menacing roots with a strong hint of Jim Croce in Sparrow's voice, very much one of these high-contrast, tension-release, Americana roots stompers that have made Nathaniel Rateliff such a suburban household name. In case you noticed the song title similarity, Zepp's bouncy D'yer Mak'er does indeed pair really nicely with this one, DJ it after and check it out. But it's a really good one on its own, too.
It Takes a Lot to Laugh keeps the catwalk blues swagger going, neatly closing up Side A … and then there's a serious tonal shift.
Simply beautiful is Starry Night, more of a pop song than we've heard so far here, and Sparrow going into a falsetto “roller-coaster” magically unlocked early '70s AM radio in my head — that whole tingling, Dazed & Confused soundtrack flavour. It's not a hard-rocker, though, more like a hand-holding, fall-in-love sort of song you'd hear in your head back when there were such things as “crowds,” “summer” and “total joy.”
It's All Just a Ride also opens in a deliberately lovely way, noting, “being young and angry never goes out of style” as this wistful folk-pop number muscles up with the drums, then goes bittersweet with some slide guitar and Sparrow's very sad voice. Great song; heavy, too — suicide trigger warning (which our whole civilization could use right now).
Remember Barry White, the next song, sounds like a joke antidote to “Remember the Alamo.” But it's actually a very tiptoe tender moment; very, very vulnerable, very very endearing. I like these lines, too, which any rare optimist might have to think about twice: “Don't it hurt so good? When it doesn't go the way you feel that it should?”
For the last of the eight songs, Sparrow summons some of that country twang that lured him from his tattoo punk roots, and I have to say this entire album has made me yearn to dance, in this case a long, slow, bombastic twostep taking up an entire empty dance floor. With the smart, very country title You Can't Be Half on a Train, Sparrow's soul singing full emerges for the climax.
Sparrow has come a long way from his frontman days in Murder City Sparrows way back — you might now just as easily recognize his name as co-founder of Sea Change Brewery as being an
Beautifully produced by Victoria choir director and Juno-winner Marc Jenkins, it's thoughtfully written, and really quite worthy of your time ...
Edmonton musician.
But I think that's going to shift back once this one comes out Friday, and as noted, this is exactly the sort of emotionally complicated music we need right now as we hold on to the rails and do our best to stay sane for just another half year before the entire planet goes totally off on a non-stop party you'll be able to hear from Mars.
Let Wild Dogs Run, indeed — un-gnawed chains are going to be just so hard to come by soon ...