From the first notes of the glorious, chiming dulcimer that dominates “Calling Madeline”, the opening track, one thing is abundantly clear. Jolene is not so much starting over as they are making a fresh start.
Mostly recorded for Sire before a label shakeup left the band in a position to take their album and run, Antic Ocean (released on their own new label) is a quieter, more acoustic affair than their past work. It is not a shell-shocked quietude, however, but one of resigned tranquility. At times, as in “Make Love To Me Keep Sleeping”, it seems as though singer John Crooke is in a reverie, in that dreamlike state he describes in song.
New revelations here concern the group’s willingness to experiment with different instruments and combinations of musicians, from Jamie Hoover’s dulcimer on “Calling Madeline” and “Exit Along” to a trio of Continental Drifters (Peter Holsapple, Vicki Peterson, Susan Cowsill) on backing vocals for Sandy Denny’s “John The Gun”. Lead guitarist Dave Burris, in addition to co-writing much of the music with Crooke, has become the band’s go-to player, creating atmospheric effects with e-bow and electric clavichord. Not to be outdone, on the Burris-penned “Cullowhee”, Crooke plays Mellotron, banjo, percussion, and a Teledyne brand electric toothbrush.
With all of this musical adventuring comes a surprisingly coherent sound that is still recognizable as Jolene, largely because of John Crooke’s voice, as well as his continuing evolution as a songwriter with a poet’s sense of wordplay and language. “Even Tempered” contains the most telling couplet on the album: Repeatedly, the narrator declaims, “I am the one who’s even tempered, even keeled/I am the one who doesn’t feel a thing anymore.” Read as a mid-relationship declaration, it cuts deep as a Raymond Carver short story, where the characters know they’re unhappy but don’t have the will power to change anymore. Jolene have no such problems when it comes to continuing their musical voyage.
