'Joy’All' by Jenny Lewis
“My 40s are kickin’ my ass/And handin’ ‘em to me in a margarita glass,” Jenny Lewis sings on “Puppy and a Truck,” the third track on her fifth solo album, Joy’All. Her languorous delivery of that couplet shames all the beach-bum dissipation of Jimmy Buffett and his neo-Nashville aspirants.
Then again, Lewis has sung out a naturalistic tendency toward coastal-California relaxation, with a side platter of neuroses, since fronting Rilo Kiley. She just happens to get a boost to that naturalism this time around with producer Dave Cobb, probably known best for his excellent run of work with Americana stalwart Jason Isbell.
Cobb helps to generate a haze that could be summer humidity, smog, or marijuana smoke—or all three combined—and highly experienced musicians like John Brion and pedal steel master Greg Leisz shimmer and sparkle within that haze. Lewis inhales the haze and exhales ten of her most deceptively easygoing songs.
The opener, “Psychos,” hints at both classic George Harrison and contemporary Josh Rouse in its groovy depiction of hopelessness; “Giddy Up” slips into electronic psychedelia amid a nearly whispered encouragement of romance; and “Love Feel” playfully echoes “Subterranean Homesick Blues” inside a melody and rhythm that suggest an encounter between Nancy Sinatra and Gram Parsons.
Lewis, always an engaging and often a wry vocalist, lets the music guide her toward subtler phrasing and pastel shading, not entirely unlike what mature Emmylou Harris might sound like inside vintage Fleetwood Mac and definitely entirely unwilling to drive her truck and her puppy toward the middle of the modern-country road.
Joy’All sounds the way a perfect summer afternoon feels and smells: yellow-ray warmth and honeysuckle, but also sunburn and stale beer. It’s pretty and it’s painful and it feels as though it could go on forever, but it’s also over far too soon.
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Stream or download Joy'All on Amazon here.
