Israel Nash – Lifted
Loose Music – 27 July 2018
Originally from Missouri and now based in the quaintly named Texas town of Dripping Springs, as with its predecessor, Israel Nash again recorded ‘Lifted’, his fifth album, in his ranch home studio, but, unlike Silver Season, this eschews the experimental for more direct and compact material (only one track tips over the five minute mark) with a melodic strength that reflects its Trump backlash themes of moving forward and optimism. Indeed, the press release calls it a modern-day hippie-spiritual, which seems pretty close to the mark.
The influences and reference points remain much the same, chiefly Neil Young, CS&N and, notably on Sweet Springs, the sunny psychedelic harmony pop of the Beach Boys. The track is preceded with a brief intro that samples field recordings (quite possibly rain pattering down, though the list includes frogs, crickets rushing water and a rattlesnake), as indeed does anthemic album opener, Rolling On, with its cosmic instrumental prelude before blossoming into an echoey sung message about not getting stuck in the past and seeking to become a better self that can’t help but conjure thoughts of After The Goldrush.
Backed by his regular band of Joey and Aaron McClellan on guitar and bass, Eric Swanson on pedal steel and drummer Josh Fleischmann, it’s augmented here and there, as on the blissful CS&N dreaminess of Looking Glass, with strings and horns. Lucky Ones is more of straight ahead laid-back midtempo country rock, taking time out for a brief piano tinkled bridge into the extended fade, while Spiritfalls, one of several songs about self-healing (he says it was written from the realisation that we’re just grains of sand in the cosmic desert but that doesn’t make us meaningless), rides moody, warm and sultry breezes blowing in from the desert.
Opening with a musical box intro, Northwest Stars (Out of Tacoma) continues the album’s widescreen night under the stars atmospherics, moving on to the slow march beat and stretched out reverb treated harmonies Hillsides that feel like a meld of Robin Gibb and Tommy James.
Another track to feature found sounds, The Widow steers things into the final stretch with Comes A Time era Youngian yearnings, the euphoric miasma of Strong Was The Night finally ebbing away into the quiet piano notes and distant vocals of the gospel-inspired Golden Fleeces, gradually gathering to a triumphant sonic swell that, echoing the album title, lifts you up and carries you aloft into a brighter tomorrow. Expansive and intimate, personal and universal, spawned of despair but fuelled by hope, it flies on a higher plane. Book a seat.
ISRAEL NASH DATES
NOVEMBER
2nd — Botanique Witloof Bar, BRUSSELS
3rd — Colos-Saal, ASCHAFFENBURG
4th — La Maroquinerie, PARIS
6th — Strom, MUNICH
7th — Legend, MILAN
8th — Bogen F, ZURICH
9th — Manufaktur, SCHORNDORF
10th — Muziekgieterij, MAASTRICHT
11th — Poppodium Hedon, ZWOLLE
12th — TivoliVredenburg Pandora Hall, UTRECHT
13th — Nochtspeicher, HAMBURG
15th — Debaser, STOCKHOLM
16th — John Dee, OSLO
17th — Kulturbolaget, MALMO
19th — Festsaal Kreuzberg, BERLIN
20th — Stadtgarten, COLOGNE
22nd — Scala, LONDON