Mason Jennings – Century Spring

Mason Jennings would probably not classify his songs as art. On his third album, Century Spring, he shears them of most singer-songwriter profundity, irony, or poetry, and the artlessness doesn’t just lie there, it stands up and speaks plainly.

Prettily, too. Apart from one misfire — “Bullet”, a would-be talking-blues that belongs on an album by someone else (Shawn Mullins, say) — the songs lean toward folk modesty: quiet strumming, clusters of piano notes laid out like building blocks. In voice, including a falsetto of yearning lightness, Jennings resembles a sweeter Lyle Lovett, and the Minnesota native shares his Texas compatriot’s devotion to near-impeccable craftsmanship that designs a chair to be sat upon, not to match the rest of the decor.

Since the songs on Century Spring furnish a love nest, it’s just as well that they don’t clutter up the place. Prone to lyrics that touch on the literary demotic, Jennings lingers over his words, ensuring pauses for the listener as well. In the spare enclosure of “Forgiveness” or the wry wonder of “New York City”, his use of settings as emotional metaphors gives basic lines such as “I believe/If you fall in love/You should jump right in” an impact much stronger and more explicit than implied by Jennings’ unpretentious nods to the Beatles and Cat Stevens.

In other words (the words Jennings might use), the songs make you feel what the singer feels. Love, the most common subject of pop music, comes through in many equally powerful guises. It’s a force on Century Spring because Jennings lets it exist like gravity or subjugation or spring sunshine. He doesn’t let it exist like art.