In Jon Langford’s spooky paintings, country music stars of a lost era gaze into space glazed with joy, as if frozen in a tomb buried by neglect and Shania Twain’s navel. American decay is always on Langford’s mind, yet even as he and others have taken potshots for punchlines, his new album is tilted head down, with profound sadness for a country that misplaced its soul. “Everybody’s feeling strange about their lives, and who’s to blame?” the Welshman-turned-Chicagoan sings. Exactly. This is territory Langford has mined before, but never with such compassion.
Or with such vital tunes. Given the litany of music Langford unleashes regularly, the prospect of a few elegant stinkers would be expected. Not here. These stomping rockers and graceful ballads are his most regal. The guitar of John Rice finesses them all, in a chamber setting of piano, violin and organ reminiscent of Alejandro Escovedo or Neil Young’s recent Prairie Wind.
Langford’s lost characters — a farmer adrift on a melting ice cap, gorillas humping Wall Street, Chris Columbus collapsing on our shores — make for perfect absurdist theater. Even when his band rises up, Langford sings with quiet reserve, keeping the story from washing away.
The title song bookends Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” at a third its tempo: “For reasons you don’t even grasp/You recycle some life from the past.” “Buy It Now” is sadder, so tender, a love song to consumer lust. “Before you know/Everything you own/Will wither like the petals on a flower,” Langford sings. Attention Wal-Mart shoppers: You’ve been punk’d.
