The discography of guitarist Nels Cline stretches back three decades and contains over 130 releases, so it's tough to generalize about it. But it's probably fair to say that his records tend to work best when focused on a specific theme. Take Interstellar Space Revisited, his live album with Gregg Bendian that re-imagined the legendary John Coltrane-Rasheed Ali classic, or Ash and Tabula: Out Trios Vol. 3, a set of full-speed improvisations with Andrea Parkins and Tom Rainey. Both are smart, sharp, and consistent. On the other hand, consider albums by his group the Nels Cline Singers-- all interesting, but also, as Aaron Leitko put it in a Pitchfork review, "schizophrenic" and "hard to pin down... Because of this constantly shifting focus it's hard to call any one album the definitive Nels Cline statement," Leitko wrote. "Each record is just another group of solid but diffuse tunes."
The same applies to Cline's latest, the solo, all-instrumental Coward. According to a press release*,* the album resulted from him "contemplating a solo overdub project for nearly 25 years." So one might expect the record to be focused, and in fact each track has a clear, well-executed purpose. But as a whole, Coward is pretty schizoid. Spinning through delicate acoustics, genre homages, abstract meditations, and even an electro-funk number, Cline wanders around the map without much concern for connecting the dots. This dizzying diversity makes Coward less an album than a collection of unrelated essays. It's easy to admire, not too tough to enjoy-- but the abrupt stylistic shifts make it hard to love.
Still, examining individual tracks reveals a wealth of interesting music. Opener "Epiphyllum" builds a tense, textured drone, while the obviously-titled "Thurston County" does a convincing impression of the Sonic Youth guitarist's Branca-punk style, yet gains enough momentum to become a worthy rocker in its own right. Even better are two acoustic guitar pieces, "The Divine Homegirl" and "The Nomad's Home", whose precise, patient tones recall the prettier tunes from Sir Richard Bishop's Polytheistic Fragments. The other acoustic pieces on Coward are less compelling, more like exercises in Derek Bailey or John Fahey scholarship than coherent songs. But even there, Cline's devotion and energy are never in doubt.
One section of Coward, a six-track suite dubbed "Onan", actually retains some thematic consistency, with a darkly insistent mood running throughout. Still, here again we get so much hopping around-- from the post-rock drama of "II: Lord and Lady", to the Pink Floyd psych of "IV: Interruption (Onan's Psychedelic Breakdown)", to the Black Dice throb of "V: Seedcaster"-- that it's nearly impossible to get hooked by all the tonal leaps that Cline so quickly and effortlessly glides through.
It's perhaps unfair to fault Cline for stretching his many creative limbs-- the guy has long been adept at every conceivable guitar sound, and he could probably base a full album on each mode he employs here. But it's also likely that such albums would be more memorable than this one, whose songs are hard to recall once Cline has discarded them and jumped forward. There's no doubt that Coward is a worthy addition to his canon, but the chances of it being anyone's go-to Cline disc are roughly the same as someone listing a compilation as their favorite album.
