Rockin' Our Turntable: Cass McCombs
By Michele Lenni in Arts & Entertainment on May 11, 2011 6:40PM
Wise people tell us that the only thing constant in life is change. We change jobs, we change locations, we change partners, in fact, the only thing that we can truly rely on is the fact that life is constantly moving, shifting and the people who resist, or are content to remain stagnant, are going to be the ones left in the dust. Throughout Cass McCombs' career he has tossed about and become somewhat of a traveling minstrel, content to drift from New York to Baltimore to San Francisco to Chicago, and this does not even take into account his heavy touring schedule over the past five years. Some would say McCombs' distinct, thoughtful and somber music is molded by his nomadic tendencies; we would have to agree.
McCombs' fifth effort, Wit's End, is his most stripped down, earnest and weighty record yet. At its most beautiful, Wit's End is a record that is unadorned by the slick production, track upon track of instrumentation or thick, pungent harmonies we've become accustomed to from other singer-songwriter types. It's plain, it's candid and it is McCombs' most sincere effort to date. With just an acoustic guitar, harpsichord, a breeze of woodwinds and the nasal falsetto of this traveling troubadour, we are frozen in our tracks. Perpetually caught in his web of longing and love lost.
All of that being said, yes, the record is also a complete and total bummer. Wit's End came across the office turntable about a month ago during the unrelenting hold that winter hold had on the city, and with its more bleak aesthetic, it took us a while to get through it. The mood on each of McCombs' records seems to bend, sway and shift as often as his locale changes. His 2007 effort Dropping the Writ included many Ray Davies inspired pop anthems like "That's That" or "Crick In My Neck," whereas the songs that stand out on this record like "County Line" or "The Lonely Doll" are certainly more restrained, sullen and less reliant on a clever up-tempo song structure. All this being said, it is truly a stunningly gorgeous record. It did take more than a few listens for the wistful, simple beauty of this record to sink into our consciousness. It seems like a deliberate move on McCombs' part, and emotionally, the record McCombs had to make at the time. We are glad he did.