Interior Live Oak by Cass McCombs
'Interior Live Oak' by Cass McCombs
Last year, rock ‘n’ roll singer-songwriter Cass McCombs reissued an EP and two full-lengths from 2002 through 2005 (the start of his official recording career), plus a collection of previously unreleased tracks recorded circa 1999 and 2000 (previews of the career). His 11th solo album, Interior Live Oak, nods in the direction of those younger creations.
That nod includes musical simplicity: although McCombs stretches 16 songs across nearly 75 minutes, he doesn’t experiment with sudden shifts within each song’s structure. Even the longest, “Lola Montez Danced the Spider Dance,” doesn’t make any sudden moves for the entirety of its seven minutes.
Instead, McCombs mesmerizes through sure, steady repetition derived from the acoustic-folk idiom. In refrains that are less choruses than single phrases or sentences returned to at the beginning or end of every stanza, he establishes a fixed point of character, setting, or situation. The rest of the lyrics build around that point.
McCombs also holds attention by varying tempos, moods, and styles from track to track. “Home at Last” uses cello and heavy cymbals to deepen the ambling melancholy of a man willing to be forgotten; “Who Removed the Cellar Door?” hints at shaggy reggae inside disaster-bound dark Americana; and “Asphodel” runs at pop-rock speed past impressionistic images of underworld flowers and missing love.
Working with musicians present on the reissues—bassist Chris Cohen and multi-instrumentalist Jason Quever, both co-producers as well—and more recent side players like guitarist Mike Bones, McCombs modestly displays a creative range as broad and tight as that held by the likes of John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats.
His singing is more obviously modest, with shades of a less quavery mid-period Bob Dylan and the flat expressiveness of Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan. Cass McCombs humanizes Interior Live Oak with that vocal plainness inside songful generosity.
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