M.C. Taylor is working for the weekend. “When Satuday comes, I’m gonna rock my soul,” he promises on Lateness of Dancers, his fourth full-length as Hiss Golden Messenger. “I might get a little crazy, I’m gonna drink some whiskey.” As the piano pounds out an insistent bundle of chords and the guitars carouse and stumble against one another, Taylor draws out that last word, savoring the syllables as though they’re the only thing getting him through the week. The song is less about raising hell and more about chucking your woes aside, unburdening yourself of your trouble and finding precious freedom in merriment.
Harvest is the general theme of Lateness of Dancers, not only marking one season’s labor to ensure survival through the next but also celebrating that work with a bit of whiskey and soul-rocking. Mixing regional folk and country traditions with strains of rock and R&B, these songs strike a tone of convivial toil. Taylor has been working in the music business for nearly twenty years: first in the hardcore band Ex-Ignota, later with the San Francisco outfit the Court & Spark, and most recently and most productively as Hiss Golden Messenger.
Lateness of Dancers, named for a Eudora Welty short story, marks a transition commercially, if not creatively: Taylor’s first three albums were issued by North Carolina upstart Paradise of Bachelors, but this new one is his first for Merge. Taylor may have recorded these songs well before he signed that contract, but compared to previous albums, the arrangements on Lateness are airier, the tempos bouncier, the playing brisker. Largely absent from Lateness of Dancers, however, is the uncertainty that frayed the homespun Bad Debt (recorded at Taylor’s kitchen table), the prodigal rambling that mapped out Poor Moon, and the spiritual inquisition that made Haw one of the hardiest country records of the decade. These songs are more about the reward that a Saturday provides.
At times Lateness of Dancers may sound too light, but after so many albums made during and about crises of faith, that tone is not unappealing. Taylor invited some of his North Carolina neighbors to back him on these songs, including guitarist William Tyler, brothers Phil and Brad Cook from Megafaun, Mountain Man’s Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, and occasional Messenger member Scott Hirsch. They give the lightness of Dancers a real-stakes feel. On the would-be AM radio hit "Lucia" and the holler epic "Day O Day (A Love So Free)", the rhythm section in particular instills these songs with a not-quite-carefree spryness that sounds more like Memphis than North Carolina—but generally, they sound charmingly unrehearsed, as though they’ve simply gathered on someone’s back porch for the evening. There’s even a chorus of crickets in the interlude between the title track and “I’m a Raven (Shake Children)”.
Even when things turn dark, the music sounds unbowed. “The misery of love is a funny thing,” goes “Mahogany Dread”. “The more it hurts, the more you think you can stand a little pain.” Yet Taylor’s delivery is not anguished—more curious than rueful about the travails of romance—and when Hirsch’s organ and Tyler’s Stratocaster take over on the coda, that little pain actually sounds inviting, perhaps even a reward in itself. For some listeners, especially those who might discover Hiss Golden Messenger through this Merge debut, this persistently breezy tone may render the songs inconsequential, and certainly Lateness lacks the gravity of its predecessors.
But that just means this album sounds best in the context of the Hiss Golden Messenger catalog—as a comment on and a celebration of the spiritual and creative toil on the previous albums. It's a much less private record than what came before; in fact, Taylor relishes the company of his fellow Tarheel musicians. “I beat my drum, everybody to come running,” he sings on closer “Drum”, a new recording of a song that he first set to tape years ago. On Bad Debt, it sounded like a quiet folk manifesto, as though he was laying out plans for a new chapter in his career. On Lateness, the song has the feel of fellowship, although not merely because the band elaborate on his sentiments with fiddle, tambourine, and banjo. Taylor sounds like a country preacher greeting parishioners as they leave the sermon some bright Sunday morning, bidding each of them to “take the good news, spirit it away.” He no longer carries the burden alone; we all shoulder it together.
