Still Falling forges new ground for ex-Dieselhed mainstay Virgil Shaw. The San Francisco musician’s second solo album is an intimate, lively blend of country soul, folk and indie rock that is not only plenty removed from the bong-twang rock of his former group, but also a blossoming of a multi-hued vision perhaps unanticipated following his somewhat monochromatic solo debut, 2000’s Quad Cities.
Still Falling ascends both in composition and arrangement. Mostly, its ambling 3/4 and 6/8 tunes driven by acoustic guitar and/or piano rise and fall with lo-fi orchestration of keyboards, horns, bells and cascading drums. At times, The Band might come to mind, at others such current-day acts as Lambchop or Clem Snide. Songs often read like cinematic epiphanies; on the album-opening “The Drawing”, Shaw describes a sketch left as a goodbye message, singing “You got up and out of your picture, you got smaller and disappeared.” Later, on “Wet Splashes”, he’s losing himself on a California highway while apologizing to the person he left “asleep and naked in a bean bag chair.”
Shaw’s backing band, including drummer Danny Heifetz and keyboard savant Marc Cappelle, deliver vibrant and inventive support. But mostly, credit Shaw for the willingness to be more bold than in the past. It might be called Still Falling, but it hardly represents a downward trajectory in his artistry.