Bill Callahan has accomplished essentially everything most modern day independent artists aspire to. Under the pseudonym “Smog,” he put out a series of classic albums at the peak of the early ’90s lo-fi movement. He earned critical respect and a cult following with distorted textures and experiments with noise, fully pushing amateur, cheap equipment to its limits. Callahan even has the requisite masterpiece under his belt, 1995’s Wild Love, a seminal, brilliant and oddly accessible fusion of experimental chaos and precise balladry.
Then, at the turn of the century, Callahan kept his collection of dark, comic and bleak aphorisms but began slowing down and unplugging. His latest, Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle, largely continues this trend: The arrangements are mature and subdued, humbly deferring to the miserablist musings fans have come to know and love.
The album is yet another mark of Callahan’s retirement of sorts, arriving without very much strident effort or zeal. After all, he laid down the basic foundations for Eagle over the course of four sleepless days before sending it off to arranger Brian Beattie. Yet, the pastoral folk melodies and gentle rhythms of the piece do not belie any traces of insomnia.
So why should one care about the assorted ramblings of a soft, past-his-prime singer-songwriter? The simple answer is because the musician in question, without fail, rewards close attention to those solipsistic musings by casually sprinkling moments of brilliance across the nine tracks.
Callahan could just as easily toss off Eagle in his sleep, and he practically did in “Eid Ma Clack Shaw,” narrating the scribbles he made upon waking: “It was hard to read at first/ But here’s what it said/ Eid ma clack shaw/ Zuppovan del bar.”
He balances these indulgences with that particular blend of odd humor and truth he built a career on, attributing the cause of the gibberish to the ghostly presence of an old lover to whom he sings, “Your love is the king of the beasts/ And when it gets hungry, it must kill to eat.”
Sonically, Eagle is much more assured and controlled than its predecessor, Woke on a Whaleheart, a boozy, rambling jam session of a thing. “Rococo Zephyr” sweeps over the listener with waves of orchestral beauty rarely felt before in Callahan’s work. At first glance, Callahan’s verse seems enigmatic, chosen for its pleasing, sonorous qualities rather than literal significance, a la Bon Iver.
Eventually, the connection between an ornate style of 18th century French art and architecture, a westerly breeze and an unnamed lost lover who experiences it all beside him becomes clear, as Callahan sketches the elegiac relationship between nature and love he constantly sees: “A fiercer force had wrenched her/ From where she used to be/ I caught and caressed the length of her/ A tender willow branch floating on me.”
Of course, Callahan’s dry wit and wisdom are often just as interesting as his melancholy, most notably in album closer “Faith/Void.” The cascading, grand strings of the piece provide a sly companion to his half-serious castigation of humanity, informing the listener that “it’s time to put God away” because “a void without a question is just perverse.” The content of the track bears little semblance to its neighbors’, but hearing Callahan use the tone of a father gently scolding his child to call for the end of an institution as old as mankind is clearly worth it.
The sense of adventure prevalent in his Smog days is permanently gone. A 42-year-old veteran of the ’90s really must be excused for not bathing his songs in newfound, dissonant noises. Still, as Tom Waits has emphatically proven, it is entirely possible to age without grace, to dig even deeper into the trenches of Americana and find inspired, radical new ways to sing the same sad laments.
Callahan retains the capacity to make good records, as he always will, but his palette is beginning to seem a bit facile and limited. Perhaps it’s time to bring those screaming melodies out of the closet and choke the listener with some good ol’ smog.
vmain13@umd.edu
RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars
