Freedy Johnston – Never Home

With his focus on guitar primacy, engaging storytelling and lasting melodies, Freedy Johnston is a first-class American singer/songwriter. He’s also an indefatigable craftsman who shows a perfectionist’s attention to detail, but Johnston’s magic is seldom clinical, and Never Home is a dynamic successor to 1994’s This Perfect World.

Influenced by his Kansas roots and his big-city (New York) experiences, Johnston created a near-seamless blend of melancholic ballads and power-pop on This Perfect World. While Never Home is a more buoyant effort, Johnston uses a familiar approach, where crisp electric guitars flirt gorgeously with tender acoustics and songs vary in mood and texture.

In top form with “On The Way Out”, the leadoff track and single (it was included on 1996’s Feeling Minnesota soundtrack), Johnston captures a petty shoplifting scene by marrying scintillating pop to nervy lyrics from the thief’s perspective. Johnston boils the moment down to its essence — the tension between a watchful clerk and a mindful crook — economically choosing words to heighten the lyrical effect. Listeners (with or without shoplifting experience) recognize this situation: “Just kinda walk around/Check it out/Take two, put one down/Don’t think you saw it.” After a spare, hooky electric guitar solo, the ultimate question — “Will I get caught?” — is all the more thrilling over the song’s edgy instrumentation.

The song’s vicarious boost is just one of the standout moments on Never Home, as Johnston delivers a wide range of stories. “I’m Not Hypnotized” uses bright guitar jangle (producer Danny Kortchmar and Dave Schramm contribute effectively), a supple bass riff (from longstanding Johnston contributor Graham Maby), and infectious percussion (ain’t bells grand?) to describe love’s bewitching enchantment. The details — a luscious blend of new-age-isms (“Hearts and moons and other signs”) and level-headedness (“I know what you want to hear”) — express the tricky gamesmanship that often accompanies a budding relationship.

The languid “Western Sky”, a lovely tale of fear, grief and a husband-wife bond, unfolds in swirls of modern romantic imagery — “His conscience waits for dark/Like an AM radio song/Fades in reflected off the clouds” and “Between the signs/I’m spelling out your name/In neon passing by.” On a long drive West, phone calls from the song’s protaganist to his wife (“Glad you’re there/You know my fear”) are juxtaposed with narrative scene-setting to create a wonderfully complete portrait.

And those are just Never Home’s first three tracks. The spellbinding “If It’s True” asks “When is loneliness not loneliness?” over an aching melody as the song’s characters address important decisions. An upbeat tale of vulnerability (“One More Thing To Break”) with swirling backwards guitar stands perfectly next to lush efforts like “Hotel Seventeen” and “You Get Me Lost”, while “Gone To See The Fire” manages a tricky blend of folk and power-pop influences. The latter, a mysterious tale of a couple immersed in discovery, is well-balanced, and backing vocalist Mary Lee Kortes adds wonderful harmony. While Johnston has a solid voice, Kortes bolsters him well on four of the album’s 11 songs.

Johnston slims his personnel on Never Home, and while Marc Ribot’s spellbinding guitar from This Perfect World is occasionally missed, there are outstanding cameos here, too. Dave Schramm’s gorgeous lap steel lends “Seventies Girl” its especially romantic sensibility, while Jane Scarpantoni’s cello is used in both bittersweet (“You Get Me Lost”) and effervescent (“Something’s Out There”) contexts.

Awash in Johnston’s evocative lyrical imagery and rich instrumental textures, Never Home builds upon the darker hues and characters of This Perfect World , adding essential colors to the picture. In doing so, he — and his characters and music — experience intriguing, meaningful growth.