In his quarter-century, Ryley Walker seems to have made definitive decisions about what qualifies as a worthy influence: Van Morrison records made between 1968 and 1974, Jackson C. Frank, Pentangle, and the recently reissued early works of Mike Cooper are all among the examples. On Primrose Green, he embraces those inspirations without wrestling with them. He lugs their aged weight around as signs of good taste and his self-proclaimed place in a historical lineage. Though Walker comes from a mid-sized city in Illinois, he sings as if he bounced between the British Isles as a kid. Alongside his shoplifted accent, he apes Morrison’s trademark grunts and melismas.
Make no mistake: Walker is a prodigious talent. He’s one of the leading young stylists in a crowded instrumental guitar scene. He possesses the light touch of Bert Jansch, the unbottled energy of Peter Walker, and the musical erudition of John Fahey. And he has a Miles Davis-like capability to surround himself with astounding musicians, from early collaborator Daniel Bachman to the band of Chicago jazz firecrackers who not only support him on Primrose Green but also supply many of its best moments. Walker is versatile, too, with a chameleonic quality that allows him to slip into ragged electric blues and bucolic acoustic reveries with equal ease. Of all the songwriters trying their hand at this revivalist approach during the last decade, including Steve Gunn, Hiss Golden Messenger, and Sharon Van Etten, Walker is the most natural and enviable.
The band he built for Primrose Green is a stirring, captivating ensemble, too, the kind of group that could jam for an uninterrupted hour and never lose an audience’s attention or its own freewheeling focus. During the extended introduction of "Love Can Be Cruel", for instance, they delight in the space between folk-rock form and jazz-band freedom. Heavy acoustic strumming, sharp electric guitar and twinkling keyboards dart around a deep rhythm, working into a frenzy until the song approaches the ecstasy of a raga. "On the Banks of the Old Kishwaukee" depends upon another stunning groove built by drummer Frank Rosaly and bassist Anton Hatwitch. Walker wires a moaning blues theme into the beat, suggesting the wonderful roots-rock patience of American Beauty-era Grateful Dead. The band sizzles during "Sweet Satisfaction", dips and dives during "Same Minds", and charges into vibraphone-and-bass bedlam during "Summer Dress".
But the trouble comes with Walker—the songwriter and singer, not the instrumentalist. For someone so obsessed with classic troubadours, he has a damning disregard for his own songs. He over-sings almost every part of this record, trying to match his heroes with an inadequate instrument. The screamed lover-boy exhortations of "Summer Dress" are counterproductive at best, copycatting at worst. He treats every written syllable of "Sweet Satisfaction" like a chance to slur a half-dozen of them, stretching words until it’s easier to ignore them. Walker’s lyrics read like a set of unfinished end-rhyme exercises by a college student who has just discovered the Beats. Smoking grass at night makes him feel "alright"; leaving his love, however cruel, would make him into a "fool."
For a point of contrast, see "Griffiths Buck Blues", the one instrumental number on Primrose Green. Over a harmonium drone, Walker musters pure energy and expression with only his guitar. As he starts and stops, slows and sprints, he communicates dread and unease with the conviction his voice lacks.
The extensive biography that accompanies Primrose Green positions it as "an album of a sort we haven’t seen since the 1970s"—a bit of description perhaps too on the nose, as these 10 songs are acts of pure creative anachronism and affectation. The shape of Walker’s voice and the twists and turns of his band reanimate a specific aesthetic without adding much more than the tools of modern production. While Primrose Green is a great statement for a '70s freak-folk cosplayer, I just hope it’s not a career-defining one for Walker.
