Don't let that score up there fool you—Ivywild is a must-listen, invigorating in the ways albums can be when they're so daring you can hardly believe what you're hearing. Really, when was the last time you encountered a record that took legitimate, potentially career-altering risks? Most of the time, an artist's "bold new direction" manifests in well-placed interview quotes and imperceptible effects on their actual music. Or, "challenging art" will come from outsiders of whom such abrasiveness is expected. Or, it'll be a hard left from a pop star or critical darling who gets the benefit of the doubt and is assumed to be one step ahead of the game.
Winston Yellen is none of those things: his Night Beds debut Country Sleep was a modestly successful and kindly received batch of folk-friendly indie rock that figured to set him on the path of quietly successful, critically acclaimed labelmates such as Phosphorescent or Bowerbirds or the Tallest Man on Earth. He's followed it with a 65-minute opus where he sounds like a Weeknd in Dixie approximately 85% of the time and becomes the first guy to actually earn the distinction of "PBR&B." We often talk of artists switching lanes or taking a leap of faith—Ivywild is a guy skydiving without a parachute, firmly believing he can stick the landing if he just times it right.
It's a free-fall captured in painful slow-mo, perversely gripping in the way it allows you to share Yellen's tunnel vision; there are many times where you might also think, "yeah, I can totally see how he might've pulled this off." He flexed raw skill and potential on Country Sleep, particularly a rangy, chameleonic voice—in a dusky lower register, he sounded like Ryan Adams, he could also channel makeout music mystics like Jeff Buckley or Devendra Banhart and when it went straight up alt-country, well, he also sounded like Ryan Adams. But he nonetheless possessed a rare assertiveness that puts him in a position to succeed when taking on pop and R&B.
He's also been blessed with legitimate inspiration. Yellen endured a hard breakup, the subsequent, requisite heat-seeking tailspin, and an artistic course correction that found him being more honest about his tastes. In addition to the Weeknd, he's gone heavy on James Blake, Burial, D'Angelo, Kanye West, Flying Lotus, Dilla—no one should act surprised, let alone outraged that any 26-year old is seeking inspiration from these acts.
Whatever the temptation may be to question an alt-country dude from Nashville about appropriation, put it aside because the major flaw of Yellen's planning stage is more simple. Pop, hip-hop, R&B, and electronic music have an expectation of being contemporary and even futuristic forms, whereas Night Beds works on a two-year album cycle. Notice that his frame of reference more or less cuts off at 2013—even if Ivywild were a flawless integration of his influences, it likely would have sounded dated mere months after Country Sleep. Moreover, all of the aforementioned have styles that are so distinct and proprietary, any slight deviation could be taken as parody.
And Yellen emerges from his immersive listening having integrated the most easily parodied aspects, mostly those of Abel Tesfaye—toggling between a wounded moan and a needy yelp at tempos which progress with the excruciating stubbornness of a hangover, utilizing drug metaphors which would've been better off as similes or just direct references. And, of course, any trace of levity can only be provided by the listener, a humor derived from Ivywild's utter lack of humor. More deadening than the suffocating arrangements and production or the nonexistent hooks is a tiresome perspective that goes beyond the Weeknd and connects to a celebrated lineage of male authors who assume an inherent profundity in treating a psychosexual crisis of mid-twenties masculinity as miserably as possible. Maybe it's meant to accurately mirror Yellen's state of mind during its creation, maybe the utter lack of catharsis or even sensuality is meant to drive home the destitution of it all.
Either way, Yellen still takes it upon himself to express Ivywild's conquests as burdens; drink and drugs must take on overwrought, sacramental connotation ("Five quarts won't harm us/ But these lines always cross us"). Elsewhere, the pillow talk fails on a fundamental level. For example, delivering "If I give all my time/ Can I live in your thighs?" in a Thom Yorke-ian whimper should make everyone who criticized Radiohead's lack of carnality apologize for their position. Or, Yellen emphasizing his isolation on "Sway(ve)", which slow-grinds with two left feet; there was no one who either could or would talk him out of not only making a song called "Sway(ve)", or using that incompatible portmanteau as a hook. That's also the only way to explain the chorus of "Eve A", which either scans as "E A I O U" or "Eve A, I fuck you" and it's actually both. There's nearly a half hour left after that. What more do you need to know really?
Ivywild wasn't created in seclusion—more than 25 people contributed, including Yellen's brother Abe, a YouTube find, and whoever's responsible for the strings, horns, samples, and harmonies that clutter the admirably confrontational, six-minute opening gauntlet of "Finished". Regardless of the help, Yellen has been granted the leeway of not just an auteur, but a genius. In the context of Night Beds' previous work and Yellen's twang, the concept of Ivywild itself is alluring, promising an actual midnight in the garden of good and evil—a mysterious, verdant sprawl suffused with the palpable humidity of the American South, hot-blooded backsliders battling against the repression of self, of religion and social mores. Or, "Ivywild" could just as easily be the name of a college bar in Yellen's part-time home of Nashville—whatever its aim, this album reminds you that Vanderbilt frat bros are probably dry-humping to "Can't Feel My Face" as we speak.
