Having experimented with and expanded his sound on the last two albums, getting rocky and noisy and introducing electronics, with ‘Visitor‘, John Moreland used his year-long break from touring and a six-month smartphone sabbatical to get back to basics, the emphasis on his voice and his words.
Recorded in his Oklahoma living room, with help from partner and Canadian visual artist Pearl Rachinsky on backing vocals for one track, Visitor marks a return to the simple acoustic folk rock of his early work, playing everything save for one guitar solo by John Calvin Abney, with songs that, as he puts it, vary from “What the hell is up with the world?” to “What the hell is wrong with me?”
It’s one of the former that opens proceedings with the fingerpicked The Future Is Coming Fast, a comment on how life has become “a digital mirage of home” where “We just choose the lie that feels the best” in “a nightmare we all thought would end” and we’re left “praying we can walk the wire/And keep our feet above the fire”.
Slightly more uptempo with bass and drums in the mix, Gentle Violence turns to a theme of strained relationships (“Miles of silence/Separating/You and me”) in, as he puts it, a post-pandemic, politically charged USA, personal tensions mirroring the bigger picture (“We are two warring nations/And we don’t remember why/So while we revel/On ground unlevel/We give our devils/A place to hide”) asking if “We keep living by the sword/Will we live another day?” in a world where “Flags and false idols/And god’s own precious guns/Won’t ever turn back the tide”.
Moreland’s been compared to Earle and Springsteen, and those echoes sound throughout the album, Bruce particularly resonating on the strummed walking rhythm One Man Holds The World Hostage and, while the title and lines about “Preaching to his choir/Pouring gas on the fire” and “he’s a fraud when he’s dealing/No telling what he’s concealing” might prompt thoughts of Putin or Trump, the song has a wider political perspective on the imbalance of power in the hands of those who, “Bulletproof and big as Jesus”, are concerned only with their own “petty satisfaction” and are “Gonna do just what he pleases/Til it’s all torn to pieces”, leaving everyone else “feeling/Like a soldier in a holy war/That I never signed up for”.
Etched on mandolin with the sound of distant winds blowing, one of two brief instrumentals (both recorded in situ at the named locations), Sobo Interlude, titled for a Tulsa bar district, gives way to another Springsteen sounding number in the strum of The More You Say, The Less It Means (with Abney’s solo) with its feeling of life’s crushing meaninglessness and a sense of helplessness (“Now there’s nothing left but smithereens”) living in a “world that made a great big hole/In the middle of your mortal soul/And now you’re throwing punches at the moon/Crying, cause it ends too soon”. The title perhaps also refers to his return to a simple direct approach as opposed to allowing surface noise to obscure the sentiments.
It hits the halfway mark with Will the Heavens Catch Us?, addressing our blindly self-destructive tendencies (“we rush right in like a wrecking ball… I will torch the kingdom outright, just to hold the crown”) as “we writhe in agony for our precious little legacy”, burning whatever bridges may be left as we go, wondering if divine intervention can ever come to our salvation.
Fleshing out the acoustic guitar with drums, electric and harmonica, Blue Dream Carolina is one of the what’s wrong with me numbers (“I been feeling fucked up, guess I always have been”) and a search for a reaffirmation of his making music as he addresses his wounded muse (“Carolina, remind me why I do this/Tell me what the truth is, don’t tell me who to be”) as well as offering support (“These days you go slower, slower than you used to/Your soul is paper thin now, but it doesn’t have to be…Hey there fallen angel, you can fall on me”).
The music industry forms the subject of the simply-picked and dappled Silver Sliver and its increasing reliance on digital rather than flesh and blood input (“Lord send down a heavenly rain/Pixels bleeding in my brain… Baptize me in a digital stream/You gotta go where there’s work that pays/Digital souls in digital praise/Now I take small steps like you told me to/But I don’t know what I’m gonna do/I couldn’t change what people say/ So I went and gave it all away”) and the choices artists are forced to make to practise their craft (“There’s a world of beauty, there’s a world of shit/There’s a world at the end of my fingertip/A digital balm for an analog bruise/ Which world do I choose?”).
One of the more musically upbeat tracks, Pearl Rachinsky on backing, the brisk shuffling, guitars chiming, organ-shaded Ain’t Much I Can Do About It returns to feeling helpless to effect change (“Living in a town I don’t recognize/The old one disappeared before my eyes/There ain’t much I can do about it”) in a life of ups and down (“Some days you’re gonna have to shed a tear/Some days you’re swinging from the chandelier”) and just being pragmatic about it (“Some people go, some people stay/Turns out you’re gonna hurt either way”). It leads down a similar thematic path to the spare fingerpicked, intimately sung No Time, again soaked in a sense of resignation and despondency (“Covered up in rain/Far from where we came/From where our troubles were tomorrow/Praying for some grace/A song you couldn’t place/Tonight your melody is ringing hollow/Looking for a clue/To tell you what to do/Looking for the pages to be turning”) in a world in which he feels he no longer fits (“They told you who you were/And you had not the words to argue/You drew a heavy line/A knot you can’t unwind/Now when the morning comes, who are you?”), but, in returning to the line “the future’s coming fast”, it resolves into a rather wonderful carpe diem love song (“Neck deep in the past/Don’t miss the moments while they’re passing/The clock will surely call/Empires all will fall/My love for you is everlasting”).
A sorrowful old time fiddle tune, named for an Oklahoma lake, Bixhoma Interlude is the second instrumental, fading away into the closing title track, a raw meditation of isolation (“The city’s getting bigger, while the world is getting smaller”) depression and feelings of failure (“I ran every way but forward, I made a flood out of a rain drop…I made a ransom note to heaven, I made a dime out of a dollar/And my half measures, well they thrashed me half to death”) of feeling a stranger in the world you inhabit, the line “Everywhere I’ve been, I am a visitor” a possible reference to touring. Ultimately, though, while there may be regrets, it’s a refusal to be brought to his knees (“round and round I go, Doing every bit I can with what little bit I know”) and an affirmation of self-worth and self-forgiveness (“I’ve been stoned and scared of my reflection/I can see your shifty smirk from the depths of my depression/But I will not be your puppet or your payment/Your easy entertainment, for I’ve made amends to me” as he ends singing “On this lonely earth, I am a visitor/Well I don’t need much/But a healing touch”.
Already allocated a place in my albums of the year, Visitor is both dark and profoundly moving, a confessional and a prayer. It brings Moreland back to the musical church in which he was baptised and will surely spur a revival worthy of his second coming.
Visitor is released via Old Omens/Thirty Tigers
Digital: 5 April 2024/Physical 31 May 2024