The Ferryman’s Ethereal Journey

Recorded entirely in London, Mark Eitzel’s tenth solo album, Hey Mr Ferryman, reflects the dreamier side of the former American Music Club leader’s varied pastiche. With one time Suede guitarist Bernard Butler behind the boards, the album boasts an ethereal ambiance that’s both somber and surreal, flush with wistful longing and shadowy, sublime contemplation. “The songs on this record are about celebrating musicians and music, about misogyny, the long shadow of history, getting one’s head out of one’s ass,” Eitzel notes on the record company’s website. “Also oceans, blood, skies, hearts, gay pioneers, carpenters, weeping women, and how death waits for you even in the happiest place on earth: Las Vegas.” 

That’s an auspicious introduction, as befits songs with such apparent gravitas, and if Hey Mr Ferryman seems a bit too hazy to be fully up to the task, there’s no shortage of pomp and pretension. Butler’s atmospheric guitar play shrouds the proceedings in an autumnal haze that fully complements Eitzel’s melancholy vocals. “Just because someone loves you doesn’t mean they can be had,” he croons on the mournful “Just Because,” one of the more solemn songs in the set. Indeed, these tunes seem intent on bursting popular myth and doing so in a way that doesn’t sugarcoat the message to any great degree. Much like early Roxy Music, Bauhaus and John Cale, Eitzel’s icy tones often sound foreboding, making the more emphatic songs — the surprisingly chipper “The Last Ten Years” and the determined “Let Me Go” — the ones to provide the most cohesive connection. 

Hey Mr Ferryman calls for a steady guide to help pilot the listener through turbulent waters. It provides an ephemeral impression, a trance-like journey and surreal set of circumstances indeed.