Mayer visits soft rock with squishy results
ob Rock,” John Mayer (Columbia Records)
You can thank the pandemic for John Mayer’s eighth studio album. He has said he wrote the songs to wrap listeners in the sonic comforter of soft rock. If you don’t like soft rock, you can blame the pandemic for one more thing.
Mayer kicks off the 10-track “Sob Rock” with a gem: “Last Train Home,” a throwback guitar-andsynth rocker with Maren Morris on background vocals that sounds like it could have been on Eric Clapton’s 1986 album “August.” (Extra credit for the great line “I’m not a fallen angel/I just fell behind.”)
Other bright spots include “New Light,” which finds Mayer suffering unrequited love, or, as he says “pushing 40 in the friend zone.” It has a funky vibe and a Santana-ish solo. And his “Wild Blue” has a cool Dire Straits feel.
If you’re getting a melancholy and retro feel here, you’re not wrong. Unrushed, comfortably in the singersongwriter pocket — if slightly beige — is the tone here, under the helm of iconic producer Don Was.
It straddles the line between ‘80s parody and homage, which the cover also does, reaching for a “Miami Vice” and peak Richard Marx vibe. The guitar work is Mayer at his best, throwing out gorgeous understated fireworks, but too many of their vehicles are unimpressive. “Sob Rock” often sounds like warmed-over yacht rock.
For every “Guess I Just Feel Like” — with shimmering, B.B. King-inspired blues axe work — there’s the lazy “Why You No Love Me,” which sounds like a lounge act gone awry. “Carry Me Away” is as substantial as a summer breeze, and “All I Want Is To Be With You” reeks of faux moody depth, a U2 song without conviction.
Fans of Mayer looking for clues into his private life will find little specific, apart from the intriguing line in “Shot in the Dark:” “I’ve loved seven other women and they all were you.” And he has a great retort for why he hasn’t settled down yet in “Til the Right One Comes:” “I know people broke down and defeated/ Lost what they needed in some miserable war/ So forgive me if I might look around for a minute.”
A fine effort, then, to try to resurrect the much-maligned genre of ‘80s soft rock. But it often feels like Mayer just fell behind.
The Flatlanders “Treasure of Love” (Rack’em Records/Thirty Tigers)
Never has the tremulous twang that is unmistakably Jimmie Dale Gilmore been more welcome than after a year and a half of pandemic strangeness.
Listening to The Flatlanders’ “Treasure of Love” is like strolling into a corner honky-tonk and discovering an old friend on the next barstool. Maybe a little grizzled, telling the same stories, but who cares? You’re together again.
Gilmore, Joe Ely and Butch Hancock first hooked up almost 50 years ago. They’ve since performed together and separately, but The Flatlanders haven’t made an album in more than a decade. Somehow this one manages to sound fresh and relevant, even if the 15 tracks are mostly familiar. Recorded during the pandemic, the selections include tunes made famous by Johnny Cash, Townes Van Zandt, Bob Dylan and others, but the trio gives them all their signature Texas sound.
Gilmore takes the lead on the title track, lending a roadhouse whine to the George Jones classic. The tone changes to boot-scooting playful on Hancock’s “Mama Do the Kangaroo.” Another Hancock original, “Moanin’ of the Midnight Train,” features Ely belting out a bittersweet ode to the woman he misses ’’every night or two.”
A smattering of Flatlander friends including guitar wizard Robbie Gjersoe and Lloyd Maines on pedal steel fill out the sound.
They close the album with a rollicking version of “Sittin’ on Top of the World,” taking turns on vocals and Hancock’s expressive harmonica adding flair. It’s a tune that gets the crowd going at the group’s live gigs. Something, perhaps, to look forward to.
Chris Thile,
“Laysongs” (Nonesuch)
On his new solo album, Chris Thile contemplates being alone.
The theme is God, as Thile — armed only with his mighty mandolin and his experience as a lapsed fundamentalist — takes on the topics of faith, doubt, community and isolation.
Thile has long pushed musical boundaries as a member of Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers, and in projects with such fellow virtuosos as Yo-Yo Ma and jazz pianist Brad Mehldau. But “Laysongs” falls into a different category.
Thile grew up in a Christian household, once wrote a song titled “Doubting Thomas” and now describes himself as a weak agnostic. On the album cover he stands with his back to a church sanctuary, looking over his shoulder.
And so he sings about death, the devil, music as medicine and the human struggle with belief. His lyrics defy gravity — Thile rhymes “Dionysus” with “purple kisses” — and as he considers what’s sacred, he occasionally turns profane.
The mostly original music isn’t gospel, spiritual or contemporary Christian 7-11 songs (the kind that repeat the same seven words 11 times), but rather a wild blend of jazz, folk and classical elements, from Hazel Dickens to Bartók. Tempos and meters shift, and then there’s no beat at all. As always, Thile’s playing is an unpredictable delight, ranging from furious strumming to pointillistic fusillades, and at times his eightstring rings like a church bell.
It’s the sound of someone wrestling with riddles that even his enormous talents can’t solve.
Also:
LOS ANGELES: Dylan is back, the younger one at least. Jakob Dylan is bringing back his band the Wallflowers for their first new album since 2012’s “Glad All Over.” The new 10-track bright collection, called “Exit Wounds” and out July 9, includes the singles “Who’s That Man Walking ’Round My Garden” and “Roots and Wings.” Dylan has explained the album’s title refers to personal baggage: “Wherever you’re headed, even if it’s to a better place, you leave people and things behind, and you think about those people and those things and you carry them with you. Those are your exit wounds.” (AP)