The measure of a good album comes from an amalgam. However, the idea that it is a good album comes from personal opinion. The arbitrary number an album receives from some site, the makeshift paragraphs and accolades, the disappointed sighs in bedrooms or cars as an album fails to grasp a listener, the lonely eyes closing as a line falls through the ears to the pit of the stomach (”Mother/do you know now/ love is not painless, it’s poison?”)– it’s all some reaction to learned sound; a chemical reaction to noise.
Still, the noise will drift over you. And when the reaction happens, you ignore the reasons why. You react. In that way, Saint Bartlett is a reactionary album (”Magic will do/ What magic will do/ living in your eyes.”) His songs are normal stories set to abnormal thoughts. A character in a Jurado song is quite often placed in circumstances of the modern condition, yet they are allowed to respond so personally, so devastatingly, that the song stands out in a world of frivolous lyrical impact. There is no “I love you” or “Come Back to Me” or simple questions. Instead, it’s “If you return to me.” Characters are given choices and consequences. They provide insight.
Saint Bartlett’s songs provide insight without overly-catchy lyrics. Echoing vocals– with the feel of old-school country-western– warble over quiet drums, acoustic and electric guitars, occasional pianos and some accoutrement. These songs are short and powerful expositions. The arrangements are delicate at times– “Throwing Your Voice” is an especially thin song with angry, parental lyrics that sound like they are just about to break into sobs. Other times, the arrangements are beefed-up– “Wallingford” hits harder with a larger guitar sound that makes the vocals seem like an afterthought. A lyric from “Wallingford” backs up the sound: “Calling out/ Your voice is an echo./ No words come back but your own.”
It would be easy to credit the previous paragraph to the production only. I mean, Richard Swift in a room with Damien Jurado is a room I want to be in. But, really, production is only as good as the minds collaborating. I know plenty of songs/albums that have amazing production for no reason. All the aforementioned instrumentation wields an easygoing construction– like many of Jurado’s older efforts. What’s impressive is that Saint Bartlett takes unnecessary chances and succeeds without fail. “Kamala,” my favorite song on the album, could have been very powerful as acoustic sad-sackery. It even starts off that way in the first chords. But a full band, including back-up singers, accentuates Jurado’s caterwauling so beautifully that I can’t imagine him playing it alone as I usually prefer him.
And onward the songs go– “Kansas City” is a beautiful remembrance of painful parting, “Harborview” seems like a westernized version of zen koans, “The Falling Snow” is an exercise in futility from a personal perspective, “Beacon Hill” is a simplistic story of sickness (”If you return to me” being an impossibly beautiful line for people unable to function in society), and “With Lightning in Your Hand” is a modified praise-song. Each and every one of them is near-perfect. Each one declares themselves like an essay whose thesis sprawls out near a radiator-close, rain-soaked window (”Will you return with a mighty storm?”).
So, yeah, personally I am in love with this album. From the opener, “Cloudy Shoes” and its repeating lines and hopeful string swells to the downtrodden second wind of the album (songs 9-12), I exercise my right to hear Jurado pining for the pratfalls of life; exploding in sorry fireworks that barely catch the attention of the people he describes (”I wish that/ I could float/ Float up from the ground./ I will never know/ What’s that’s like.) . Everymen so often ignore the very people singing directly to them (rather than trying to appeal to them), that it is almost impossible to tell them about themselves. Perhaps that is why Jurado keeps trying (Funny how we all can change/ if we just try to./ I thought it was impossible to live in love like you.). Maybe it is why we all keep trying. All you can do is keep trying. “I’m still trying to fix my mind.” No arbitrary number or preference can refute that.
