High on Jackson Hill comes a bit less than two years after Immaculate Machine's Fables, whose minor charms came from the way it filtered gentle advice through cute cautionary tales (and, let's not forget, the positively charming Kathryn Calder, a touring member of the New Pornographers). Hill opens with "Don't Build the Bridge", which links the two records nicely. Brooke Gallupe admonishes someone he deems is making a possibly risky social move: "Don't build the bridge, if you don't want to let the riff raff over." It's a sincere enough sentiment, but it also sets an precedent for the rest of the album. Gallupe has mostly taken over the reins of the band-- Calder provides background vocals and gets the spotlight on one song, "You Destroyer"-- and the fruits of his solo stewardship, as represented on "Bridge", can leave a bit of a bitter taste, when they leave a taste at all.
If Fables was an angel on your shoulder whispering advice, about a third of Jackson Hill sits between the poles of doomsday forecasts and caustic reprimands. "Sound the Alarms" is an acoustic march led by Gallupe to warn anyone within earshot that "we're at the dead end of everything," because his generation has lost all of its good ideas. Gallupe tells us on "He's a Biter" exactly where those ideas have gone: they're dead, having been "bitten" by "downtown loft vampires." "Biter", unsurprisingly, doubles as Gallupe's attempt to draw lines around appropriate aesthetic behavior. "There are some who lead and some who make it look as though they've led," he teaches us, before striking out at those who "Photoshop themselves into the credits when they can." Perhaps a bit ironically, "Biter" is Hill's most reverent bit of pastiche, a direct line to Marc Bolan's groovy Slider-period electric doo-wop. "You Got Us Into This Mess" could gloss on another album as a broad political statement, but here, a line like "It could have gone my way on any other day" is most likely very personal. And kind of selfish, too, but not as much as "Thank Me Later", which broadcasts Gallupe's healthy egotism in its title alone.
Perhaps pungency is Gallupe's preferred register, because the rest of Hill isn't nearly as memorable. The rocker "Neighbours Don't Mind" and the nostalgic "And It Was" may be on opposite ends of the tempo spectrum, but they're united under a conservative register: partying in a bachelor apartment and dancing in a "little old pub" are exactly the things that Gallupe wants to save from scenester gentrification. But advocacy works worst when it passes by unnoticed, and none of the album's sentiment or craft sticks when it's not severe; Hill's vinegar is, unfortunately, much stickier than its honey. Irony, or at least that's what I hope "Only Love You For Your Car" is, doesn't work well either: What Gallupe tries to pass as playful sarcasm is more a rhyme scheme cop-out: "I only love you for your car/ It's a shame the way things are". That bit does signal the biggest problem of Jackson Hill, a letdown after Fables; whether haughty, homesick, or ha-ha, on the way toward frankness, the album gets bogged down in simplicity.
