Over 50 years, the multidisciplinary artist and songwriter Terry Allen has received prominent fellowships, had work featured in biennales, and released 12 albums. Two of these, Juarez and Lubbock (on everything), are venerated touchstones of outlaw country, recently reissued by North Carolina-based label Paradise of Bachelors. At this point in his career, nobody would fault him for coasting. But on Just Like Moby Dick, his first collection of original songs since 2013, Allen evolves, bringing new musicians and singers into the fold to create an album whose strongest moments result from its collaborations.
Together, they take what would be just another great, narrative album set to the familiar rhythms of a country waltz and bring it to new places. Folk stalwart Shannon McNally’s warm, worn-in vocals amplify the sadness at the center of “All These Blues Go Walkin’ By” and “All That’s Left Is Fare-Thee-Well.” On the latter, the brittler tones of album co-producer Charlie Sexton tell a story about a relationship—a life, really—that can’t be mended, a wrinkle that refuses to be ironed. Though it’s a tale of futility, it ends with some of Allen’s signature sour optimism: “But somewhere in this old dirt/There’s bound be some gold/Something real that you can feel/Something you can hold.”
Each song on Just Like Moby Dick, even the one about a traveling circus descending on a city of bloodthirsty vampires, casts a tender glow. That’s in large part due to the sensitive and lyrical performances by the members of the Panhandle Mystery Band. Throughout, Lloyd Maines’ slinky slide guitar sets a slow pace from which the other players gracefully follow or depart. On album opener “Houdini Didn’t Like the Spiritualists,” the band dexterously stretches the notes out of their instruments, creating a supportive palette of sounds to surround Allen’s soft and briny singing. We may have heard these string-derived textures from Allen before—“Death of the Last Stripper” is not dissimilar to Lubbock (on everything)’s “The Beautiful Waitress”—but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth hearing again, especially with a little more rhythm.
Davis McLarty has served as the Mystery Band drummer since 1996’s Human Remains, but his presence is pronounced here. He comes most alive halfway through the album on the militant “American Childhood I: Civil Defense,” one of two tracks where the bass and cello cede control of the rhythm section to the drums. The other is “Abandonitis,” which features Allen’s son Bale on the djembe as a curmudgeonly Allen reminds the younger generation how universal life’s cruelties can be: “Maybe your sister’s in jail/Your brother’s a punk/Your folks are both dead/Or maybe just drunk/Feel all alone/So sorry for yourself/But just stand in line/Like everybody else.”
Abandonment and sorrow are two of the record’s dozen or so related themes; there’s also endless war and the fallibility of memory, topics the satirical “American Childhood” triptych captures with simple, heartbreaking truths. “It’s just the war/Same fucking war/It’s always been/It never ends,” Allen laments bluntly, drawing connections between Vietnam and Iraq. Thankfully, for every devastating literalism, there’s an equal burst of menacingly surreal imagery: a burning mobile home, a gang of murderous pirates, a child riding a squeaky bike through an abandoned town. The tendency for contradictions is evident on “Harmony Two”—a song seemingly about a high-speed chase, set to the sleepy pace of a drifting houseboat. Written by Allen’s wife and collaborator Jo Harvey Allen, it’s characteristic of an outlook on life that falls somewhere between “everything’s on fire” and “it’s 5 o’clock somewhere.”
It’s for this very reason that, at a time when crisis mode feels like the new normal, Just Like Moby Dick is worthy of an earnest listen. Perhaps the serene perspective Allen embodies is only available to those—like fellow songwriters Randy Newman and John Prine—who have lived long enough to witness tragedy become comedy. He doesn’t dismiss the calamities we face; life’s not a complete joke. But when it strikes you with a thousand harpoons, what choice do any of us have but to carry on as best we can?
Buy: Rough Trade
