A Year in the Wilderness – 2007
John Doe is back again. As a founding member of punk monoliths X, he seized his rightful place as one of the most influential musicians in American alternative music in the 1980 s, clearing a path for the revolution in that genre that would take place a decade later. Since launching his solo career in 1990 with the dusty road-poetry of Meet John Doe, John has produced six stunning roots rock albums of frightening honesty and vision. A Year in the Wilderness is no exception.
It comes as little surprise that to assist on A Year in the Wilderness, John Doe employs three different female vocalists (Jill Sobule, Kathleen Edwards and Aimee Mann). After all, it was Exene Cervenka’s restless harmonies that bolstered Doe’s own dusky lead vocals, providing X with a distinctive sound that has seldom been imitated and never bested, even by the group’s own alumni. Doe nonetheless continues to refine the formula, literate lyrics to rugged, delivering sharp, often pensive odes. He mines a gentler, kinder, but no less incisive territory of the somewhat precarious space between the sexes.
Doe even strums an acoustic guitar in full folk-ballad mode on “A Little More Time,” a somber reflection on love lost. Former X guitarist Dave Alvin provides rootsy firepower on the driving “Hotel Ghost,” as close as this disc comes to the old L.A. punk days. But Doe’s raw approach chafes at the introspective nature of these songs, adding somber, gritty gravity to the uncompromising lyrics of “Unforgiven,” “you say I’m good for nothing, so nothing’s good enough for me.” While the set lacks the blazing nervousness of X’s best material, the older/wiser Doe preserves an uneasy sense of youthful alienation that sports a musically grizzled, five-o’clock shadow. These songs resonate with a mature, biting broodiness that updates, but never dilutes, his legendary early work.
Album tracklists:
1. The Wilderness
2. Hotel Ghost
3. The Golden State
4. Darling Underdog
5. A Little More Time
6. Unforgiven
7. There’s A Hole
8. Lean Out Yr Window
9. Big Moon
10. The Bridge
11. Meanest Man In The World
12. Grain Of Salt
Buy the Album:
See another John Doe?s Album
Readers who viewed this page, also viewed:
Related posts:
1 Trackback(s)