Having been previously less than taken by the vintage pop stylings of Cass McCombs' single 'Dream Come True Girl', I was far from excited by the prospect of his latest album. My limited experience, it seems, may not have been a fair representation of the man's work, and as such, hadn't prepared me for 'Wit's End', a daringly desolate collection of songs.
The sedate melancholia of 'County Line' is a delicate and downbeat way to begin an album. Neither the mood nor tempo are raised by the music box chiming lullaby waltz of 'The Lonely Doll', and while it's probably purely coincidental that the first three tracks all have exactly the same running time - five minutes and thirty seven - there is a very definite sense of a deliberate solemnity about these songs and that McCombs has set out to explore his darker moods than to pander to listener expectations - and he won't be hurried over the task. The third of the opening triptych, 'Buried Alive', is almost Leonard Cohenesque in its simple yet affecting gravitas.
Cass evidently isn't in a good place; 'She's everything to me,' he sings on piano ballad 'Saturday Song', but far from celebrating the weekend that 'leads him astray', he sounds more like Barry Manilow on Ketamine, and as if he's about to slit his wrists. Perhaps it's simply the cumulative effect of the songs, but the seven-minute 'Memory's Stain' seems even more dolorous and the spaces between the notes are heavy with heartache.
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By the time of 'Hermit's Cave' that's reverby and barely there save for the hard blunt percussion, the atmosphere is almost unbearable, despite the lighter middle section, where he sings of rarely going outside. This is quietly oppressive, claustrophobic stuff. In comparison, 'Pleasant Shadow Song' is positively breezy and uplifting, and the half-paced shanty of 'A Knock Upon the Door' feels like the light at the end of the tunnel, even of McCombs comes on like Cohen in the 1970s.
It's an album that's dark, a soundtrack to despair and isolation, and is anything but lightweight in its quiet, introspective and introverted way, and McCombs sounds listless, deflated... but not defeated - yet.
Cass McCombs Online
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