Release Date: November 15th, 2011
Chances are nobody reading this review has ever hitchhiked for a decent portion of their adult life. One can imagine it as a uniquely solitary existence, one filled with scant human connection and more time to considers one’s involvement, or lack thereof, in the grand scheme of things.
All this to say that Trevor Jones probably has a fairly unique viewpoint on his music. The portland blues-punk musician, or so the Bon Iver-esque story goes, set himself out on the actual highway, hitchhiking his way around America while learning lap steel. Disregarding whatever exaggerations were made crafting this story into a tweet-friendly size, the narrative bears out a truth about Jones, performing as Poor Boy’s Soul, on his new record Burn Down. The subject matter of his songs all elicit varying traditional hard-folk tropes (kill-gamble-steal-anarchy, in some order), but either due to his perceived authenticity or in spite of it, Jones always sounds like he’s singing from a place of truth.
Which is a good thing, since Burn Down frequently gets bogged down by Jones’ admittedly excellent lap steel skills. Poor Boy’s Soul survives on a mixture of tense emotion, gruff shout-song and an endearing knack for how riffs should be played; the mixture gets murky when one of those outweighs the other. “Nails in the Pine” has a bit too much furious bloodletting, “Movin’ to the City” too much riff-as-song obsession, and “54 Ways” doesn’t dive far enough into specific song-craft, trading an interesting take on the Marc Cohn song “29 Ways” for basic gruffness. On a seven track, just over half-hour long LP, and given that most of Burn Down is only Jones tapping his foot, singing and playing lap steel, the cracks in the foundation are almost damning.
When the concoction works, however, Jones can arrive at something that relentless and fairly magical in its solitude. The fact that the title track is the work of just one man (excepting the presence of the female voice in the refrain) seems like a trick, but his burnt bridges are better persona is so clear and bracing that it merits consideration among the bigger names in hard-folk. Then Jones throws an inexplicable curveball, toning his delivery down several notches, slowing his feral tempos to porch-swing time, and churning out the beautiful seven minute closer “Annalisa.” The straightforward narrative about a woman who continues to evince her inner strength for displays of weakness, despite the protagonist’s desire for her to grow, borders on poignant. A soft, meaningful track to clean away some of the disturbing harsh tones of before, “Annalisa” is a wise and potentially fruitful direction for Trevor Jones, an avenue that can add character to the sturdy foundation supplied in the rest of Burn Down.
But it’s still only a foundation. Jones has crafted a singular aesthetic, a dynamite persona to go with it, and has the talent to back his storefront up with skillful songmanship. Were Burn Down longer, or did more with the idea that Jones is a lone gunman with his pedal steel and voice, this might be one of the more refreshing records to come out of the blues-folk genre in a while. But because Burn Down stays largely within the confines of its sub-genre, veering away from any tangible artistic forward moves, Trevor Jones sits rather as a marker for potential future successes.
Tracklist
- “Burn Down”
- “Movin’ to the City”
- “Nails in the Pine”
- “Throwin’ Stones”
- “Ain’t Comin’ Back Any More”
- “54 Ways”
- “Annalisa”
