Vic Chesnutt can do a lot with a somber dirge. The 11 tracks on his 12th album plod soddenly, leaden of pace and bleak of atmosphere. Drawn-out running times and a uniform midtempo crawl can test the patience of even a devoted listener, so it's a testament to Chesnutt's intricate and intelligent songwriting that Ghetto Bells is listenable at all.
Ghetto Bells eschews the shininess of 2003's Silver Lake for a dirtier, more organic sound. Again, the list of collaborators is impressive: Van Dyke Parks contributes a string arrangement for "Virginia" and plays accordion on other tracks; Bill Frisell plays guitar, most notably the mercurial solo on "Forthright"; Chesnutt's niece Liz Durrett duets on "What Do You Mean?"; and former Lone Justice and Jayhawks drummer Don Heffington keeps supple time throughout. Producer John Chelew describes the resultant sound as "nighttime." Songs like "Vesuvius" and "Virginia" amble along somnambulantly, and "Forthright" conjures a Gothic insomnia as Chesnutt wanders a lonely house contemplating death and hominy.
If slow, these songs are ultimately and admirably patient and fluid, building not to grandiloquent climaxes but to a greater and greater complexity of meaning. The album's distinct personality derives from minute nuances. For instance, on "What Do You Mean?" Chesnutt's uncertain phrasing of the line "like a puppy on a trampoline" contrasts nicely with Durrett's ethereal rejoinder "what does that mean?" The result is an intergenerational call-and-response, a joke told in reverse, and a gentle jab at the enduring eccentricities of Chesnutt's lyrics.
The hyperquotable "Vesuvius" is a standout. It begins with the Herculean task of "trying to clip the creek to the bank with a clothes pin," then declares that "hypertension is not wisdom." The line "Christian charity is a doily over my death boner" is an epigram in search of a subversive novel, and "Neapolitan ice cream is never truly integrated/ Until it's too late" reveals larger implications that transcend the merely personal. Chesnutt is singing about the confusion of race relations and "whitey boy guilt" filtered through a skewed sense of humor and an idiosyncratic system of symbols; the muddle itself is the meaning. Meanwhile Heffington's brushed snare and Park's sparkling piano prod the song toward its inevitable Vesuvian eruption.
Songs like "Vesuvius"-- not to mention "Rambunctious Cloud" and "Gnats"-- have depth, a cagey charm, and an elusive mystery that demand not just repeated but aggressive listening. Chesnutt and his collaborators don't make that level of attention easy, but they do make it worthwhile.
