John Doe – A Year In The Wilderness

The finest singer to emerge from American punk (depending on how you classify Los Lobos and David Hidalgo), John Doe has somehow managed to combine the reckless urgency that burned through his work with X with the lyrical precision and musical expansiveness that has marked his growth as a songwriter. Though Doe’s solo career stretches back to 1990, he has really hit his stride with his two most recent albums, as A Year In The Wilderness provides the follow-up punch to 2005’s powerful Forever Hasn’t Happened Yet.

In both albums, Doe is neither running from the past nor allowing his legacy to define or limit him. The opening (after a brief keyboard scene-setter) “Hotel Ghost” finds Doe at his relentless best, driven by a Dave Alvin guitar that sounds like Chuck Berry unhinged. Almost half the material pairs Doe with female singers — Kathleen Edwards, Jill Sobule and Aimee Mann — with results typically more tuneful than the harmonies with former wife Exene Cervanka that were X’s signature.

Both the writing and the pacing reflect an artist who has little interest in excavating the past. The duet with Edwards on “The Golden State” shows a mature craftsmanship as a rich and romantic metaphor for Doe’s adopted California. The languid sensuality of “Big Moon”, the country tinge of “A Little More Time” and the plaintive, acoustic “Darling Underdog”, written with Exene, find the artist as commanding at lower decibels as he is in full throttle.

There has long been a noirish undercurrent to his music (and his name). As the post-punk Everyman sings in to the throb of “Unforgiven”, “We all get what we deserve, unfortunately.”