Release Date: April 26, 2011
If there is ever a need for a reliable narrator in a genre of music, it’s folk. Propagated on brutal honesty that spins a tale in place of sweeping dramatic statements, folk can sometimes seem too literal, too spinster oriented for people whose taste only goes to the 3:30 mark. One could argue Joanna Newsom embodies this entire idiom—her record Ys was supposedly based on all real occurrences, yet the mammoth song lengths and knotty verse took too much literary investment to warrant serious pop consideration, despite its excellence.
Similar to Newsom, troubadour Cass McCombs has been dismissed by almost all save the hipster-come-bearded freaky folkies on both coasts for his complexity and impossible-to-decipher perspective. His tone has muted in the past two years, with 2009’s Catacombs earning him a modicum of larger fandom much in the same way Newsom’s mammoth Have One On Me did for her last year. However, the key difference between McCombs and Newsom is the unreliability of McCombs as a traditional folk storyteller—his verses are often knotted mysteries, accessible to only the most attuned listener. In this way his recent effort, Wit’s End, can be mind-alteringly frustrating and closed off. For some, this may become a rewarding experience (not unlike Ys), but for most, Wit’s End will fall under the purview of interesting curiosity in a curiously strong 2011 music year, tossed off at the first mention of an excellent upcoming LP.
But a frequently comic curiosity can Wit’s End be. McCombs closely resembles Edgar Allen Poe (a heavy-handed reference to be sure) in the way he blends the dark, dank corners of the folkie spectrum with a chuckle at sorrow.
The most laugh-inducing (in a good way) track is “Buried Alive,” which is exactly what it says it’s about, only featuring McCombs’ lilting waif voice pondering exactly the specifics of his predicament, including the awful stench his new neighbor is giving off. McCombs also tends toward Poe in his verse structure—on both “A Knock Upon the Door” and lead single“The Lonely Doll,” McCombs employs the surely antiquated technique of refrains, which sometimes help, but most of the time hurt. “The Lonely Doll,” intriguing premise it is when thinking about the unreliability of McCombs’ narrators, falters because it actually quite boring in its baroque darkness. “Door” is simply slightly better, even at a weighty 9:24 because it shifts narratives every verse, but an underlying problem remains. Because we can’t trust McCombs’ lyrics for what they are, the cash Wit’s End frequently trades in isn’t overarching interest or powerful songmanship—it’s more often the frustrating excavation of what exactly each of the overly long eight songs are about.
As if not happy with flipping all tropes on their collective heads, McCombs crafts two songs seemingly about being songs. “Saturday Song” is Proustian in its closed-offedness, and “Pleasant Shadow Song” is a pleasant song about a shadow in some form or fashion. Trite? Absolutely. Occasionally gripping? Yes again, but only for moments. The darkness and gloom on display here aren’t enough to keep McCombs from stumbling along on the heels of his sinewy songs.
The chief regret that can be levied on Wit’s End is that it starts out so promisingly. For a song that sounds dangerously close to the Twin Peaks soundtrack, “County Line” is a slumbery ballad about returning home after so many things have changed, hoping a certain someone’s feelings have blunted in the face of a growing corporate landscape. It’s a snakey tune that actually gets stuck in your head, a feat for any McCombs song, and holds poignancy in the face of its consistent gloom. That’s the sadness of Wit’s End, in its conclusion—there aren’t enough poignant moments here to satisfy folkies, and the curiosity of McCombs’ experiments get old after a few passing listens.
Cass McCombs – Wit’s End Tracklist:
- “County Line”
- “The Lonely Doll”
- “Buried Alive”
- “Saturday Song”
- “Memory’s Stain”
- “Hermit’s Cave”
- “Pleasant Shadow Song”
- “A Knock Upon the Door”
