When a veteran band with a revolving door membership regroups for its first studio release in five years, you hardly expect music as fresh, focused and richly satisfying as Paging Mr. Proust (out April 29 on Thirty Tigers).
Rather than playing out the string or capitalizing on a familiar brand, the stripped-down Jayhawks seem like a band renewed. The signature harmonies and spirit of reflective yearning remain, but the rootsier, twangier elements are no longer as pronounced, as the disarming melodicism of “Isabel’s Daughter” and “Lover of the Sun” sound closer to the Left Banke than leftovers from the band’s previous releases. Throughout the song cycle, there’s cohesion amid a variety that extends from the aural collage of “Ace” to the garage-band propulsion of “The Dust of Long Dead Stars.” After the departure (again) of original frontman Mark Olson, guitarist Gary Louris shines as the primary singer and songwriter, as the arrangements highlight the essential interplay of the rest of the core four—Karen Grotberg on keyboards and vocal complement and the rhythm section of bassist Mark Perlman and drummer Tim O’ Reagan—who play like a band on a mission. Co-produced by Peter Buck and Tucker Martine with Louris, the album ranks with the best the Jayhawks have released, in whatever incarnation, and “The Devil in Her Eyes” would have highlighted any of them. The buoyant, breezy music provides a perfect soundtrack for a summer of (Proustian?) reflection and anticipation.
