Bill Callahan’s first album released under his name in 2007 is a curious affair. Callahan has been honing his songwriting craft gradually as Smog (and also (Smog)), culminating in the dark Americana of A River Ain’t Too Much To Love.
On this album however he experiments with a whole bunch of musicians, instrumentation, backing singers and Neil Hagerty on production. From The Rivers To The Ocean starts with a quiet piano part before morphing into something not too dissimilar from his last album as Smog with Bill’s tar-black vocal coating over a piano-led tune, joined by “blonde violins” (as per the sleeve notes).
A total change of tack for Footprints, a stomping freak-out with barmy backing vocals. It’s quite unlike anything else Callahan has done, as is the funky Diamond Dancer, a more successful attempt at a strutting guitar-dance track.
Sycamore is a more relaxed groove, an easy melody allowing plenty of space for Bill Callahan’s croon, while The Wheel with its slightly off guitar harks back to his Smog days. Honeymoon Child is, well, slinky is the word, a kind of bluesy, funky ballad.
Later, Night takes a pretty piano part in the fashion of early Smog and turns it into a soaring, reflective number. The album finishes with the bafflingly-titled A Man Needs A Woman Or A Man To Be A Man, a toe-tapping, finger-clicking early Johnny Cash style number.
The album has a cluttered, fussy feel, lurching from style to style. An idiosyncratic and intriguing diversion for Bill Callahan.
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