Thomas Function: In The Valley Of Sickness

If Josh Macero didn’t sing in a rock n’ roll band, he might have had a lucrative career as a crooked Southern preacher.  He may not actually be the character he plays on record- a charismatic, manipulative, debauched, self-aggrandizing bullshit artist prone to delusions of grandeur while never too far from redemption- but he does have a lot of the necessary mannerisms down cold.  He hollers in his nasal, spastic Alabaman accent, often with the fiery fervor of an evangelist sermonizing to his feeble-minded flock.  Sometimes his message is a positive one (”Stop believing what you know/ if you only know what you are told!”), and  sometimes he just wants your money and your worship (”Will you get down and praise us/ like the sweet baby Jay-sus?”).  But however virtuous his words may be, one thing’s for sure: he’s too beguiling to ignore.

Fortunately, Macero is not a faithless, fraudulent minister but rather the frontman for the Huntsville-based quartet named Thomas Function.  For several years now, he and his bandmates have been playing some of the best tunes that American music has to offer, blending country twang, pop radiance and punk attitude with inimitable style.  Drummer Philip Dougherty and bassist Travis Thompson lay down solid, invigorating rock rhythms while Zach Jeffries’ Hammond organ imbues the space between the grooves with the warmth of the Holy Spirit.  At center stage there’s Macero, yelping his infectious and nimble melodies, strumming riffs that show off the tricks he learned from Crazy Rhythms and Exile On Main Street.

Just like their 2008 full-length debut Celebration!, Thomas Function’s sophomore album In The Valley Of Sickness (released earlier this month on Fat Possum Records) is as intoxicating and addictive as sugar or moonshine.  Each one of its 12 tracks is packed with irresistible hooks and reveals a different layer of Macero’s fascinatingly messy persona.

He can be a mischievous rabble-rouser like in the opener, “ADP Blues;” over a mid-tempo bar boogie, he declares that “The only gooood cop is a deeeead cop!” like he’s doing the Hokey Pokey, and even if your daddy’s the sheriff of Dixieburg, chances are you’ll want to join in the sing-along.  (Of course I doubt Macero really means it, man; it sounds more like a harmless, affectionate jab at punk rock’s tendency toward anti-authoritarian posturing.)

In the bouncy almost-love song “Waverly,” he’s brattish yet endearing.  Instead of singing something as trite as “I love you,” he sings, “It’s the silliest thing to know I need you so.”  Similarly, in the delightfully whimsical “Belly Of The Beast,” he says, “I know that I’m no good for you/ but I swear that I’ll be here for you,” and it actually sounds sweet.

In songs like “When I Was A King” and “Ew Way Ew,” he can be cocky yet relentlessly self-deprecating, plagued by failure yet devoid of self-pity.  He’ll tell you about his falls from grace, how he once was a king and a god in the days before the world broke his back and sucked his blood, and then he’ll shrug off his misfortunes like, “Oh well…shit happens.”  Next thing you know, he’s begging for salvation and wants to be brought back into the light, and he sounds like he might mean it this time…though it’s hard to tell if he’s singing to the Lord Almighty, or just the girl who got away.

By the end of In The Valley Of Sickness, Macero is still an inscrutable multitude of contradictions. He expresses some regrets, but he makes no promises.  After all, he reminds us, “answers are not simple/ truth is changing every day.”  He does make one thing abundantly clear though: we haven’t heard the last of Thomas Function.  This is a band that could spawn its own cult.