ALBUM REVIEW: Pat Kearns Tells Dusty Tales of Tough Times on ‘Together and Alone’

Pat Kearns likes to tell stories. On the first Kearns Family album, the Mojave Desert resident unspools stark tales of cursed outsiders and sentimental fools with an empathetic touch, presenting these dusty sagas without passing judgement or romanticizing tough times. Sharing musical DNA with John Prine, Leonard Cohen, and other kindred balladeers, Together and Alone feels timeless and immediate at once, sure to resonate in any era.

A former Portland, Ore. resident who’s now based in the Mojave Desert (where he runs his own solar-powered recording studio), the veteran solo artist is joined by wife Susan on upright bass – hence the Family tag – but it’s essentially a one-man show otherwise. Kearns writes all the songs alone, apart from one collaboration, and plays luminous acoustic guitar, fashioning rich, satisfying textures, as well as blowing sporadic lonely harmonica reminiscent of Neil Young. This pared-down setting is the perfect complement to his weathered voice, which can evoke deep weariness without conceding defeat, while the occasional scruffy falsetto adds a hint of lunacy.

Looking for outlaws? They’re here. “Bandito” surveys the bleak prospects of a man who has “less than seven miles to go” to the border, concluding “the wind and sun / Will stop you dead.” In “The Funny Thing About Keeping Moving” Kearns portrays a wild drifter caught up in a deadly train robbery and betrayed by a former lover. “The funny thing, when an outlaw does stop running…That’s the moment they don’t expect to die,” he sighs, his voice shrinking to a clipped wheeze, as if drawing a final breath. So much for going out in a blaze of glory.

Elsewhere, memories create a heavy burden. “The Old Days” tenderly recalls summer afternoons with a long-departed father, admitting, “My heart aches,” while “Charlie” remembers a ne’er do well buddy who was “always high and drinking,” though such recollections of boozy excess don’t seem like much of a legacy to treasure.

Together and Alone opens with the spectacular “Dust,” a brooding ode to perseverance in the face of decay and closes on a gentler note with “Love Will Win in the End,” seeking comfort from another lonely soul after a romance implodes. If hardly a storybook ending, it’s a compelling one, like all of Pat Kearns’ thoughtful songs.

The Kearns Family’s Together and Alone is out Jan. 31.