American folk music has a polite side. You can hear it via mainstreamed folkies like the Lumineers, and you can endure it just about every Sunday evening if you tune in “Simply Folk” on Wisconsin Public Radio. You could forget that a lot of American folk music rose from observant discontent.
The Perpetual Optimist is a raspy reminder of that discontent from Luke Lalonde, usually the lead singer and guitarist for Canadian indie-rock band Born Ruffians. In the opening song, “Waiting for the Light to Change,” he glares at passing cars, curses the sun and channels Roger Miller—not when Miller sang about England swingin’ like a pendulum do [sic], but when he threatened to knock someone down as retaliation for an ornery look.
Lalonde pins many other influences onto his chest. In “Dusty Lime,” a cantankerous overview of existence under late-stage capitalism, he unfurls a Hank Williams yodel; in “(Not My) Spiritual Guide!,” he evokes the street-poet bitterness—cf. “Hazy Shade of Winter” and “Richard Corey”—of Simon & Garfunkel; and throughout the disc, he reaches for the “derisive caw” (Philip Larkin’s phrase) of 1960s Bob Dylan.
He isn’t just brandishing his tastes, however: in 31 minutes, Lalonde also displays impressive variety, particularly in short interludes like the cowboy-lament instrumental of “Poonchie” or the louche French-pop aside of “La Terre Vivra.” And to the Dylanesque caw he adds Dylanesque wryness, imbuing the curmudgeon-vs.-Pollyanna contrasts of the title track with wondering affection and electrifying the resigned stomp of “Two Minutes to Midnight.”
Too soon, Lalonde closes with “Winners & Losers,” in which he encourages us to keep trying even though we’ll almost certainly keep failing. That’s the lot of regular folk, and the theme of his folk music, neither too polished nor too polite.
