In 2009, Phosphorescent released To Willie, an album dedicated to covering songs written or popularized by Willie Nelson. At the time it seemed like a stylistic sidetrack-- not only did Phosphorescent mastermind Matthew Houck dig more deeply into traditional country music than ever before, a few of his interpretations also evinced far more playfulness and fun than any of his original offerings. Surely, the next proper Phosphorescent effort would find Houck returning to the forlorn wilderness folk he'd howled out on his first three albums though, right?
Not so fast: To Willie turned out to be more harbinger than lark. Phosphorescent's latest record, Here's to Taking It Easy-- with a full recording band in tow-- is by far the most conventional music he's ever made. Luckily, Houck and his cohorts compensate for a dip in idiosyncrasy by inhabiting the tropes of beer-soaked, sun-baked country-rock with fullness, commitment, and chops, all while finding enough room for Phosphorescent's trademark ragged lonesomeness.
The opening "It's Hard to Be Humble (When You're From Alabama)" announces its shit-kicking intentions with hot guitar licks and blaring horn charts; it may be the first Phosphorescent song more impressive for what the music's doing than for what Houck's singing or how he's singing it, but it ain't the last. "I Don't Care If There's Cursing" is lyrically monotonous but boasts a vibrant bassline and sterling pedal steel while "We'll Be Here Soon" expertly recreates the feel of a late-night Mexican cantina (proving Houck's internalized Nelson exceedingly well). Then there's the closing "Los Angeles", which offers up a faithful facsimile (maybe a little too faithful) of Neil Young's bruised guitar heroics.
Speaking of L.A., it plays a substantial role in the album's lyrics, which chiefly concern the strain placed on relationships by life on the road. Perhaps the touring-man blues of "Tell Me Baby (Have You Had Enough)" feel a bit shopworn, but Houck proves himself capable of redeeming the tropes with a line like, "I wish those nights of pleasure and days of pain weren't so tightly bound," (from "Heaven, Sittin' Down"). And that's nothing next to the staggering, heart-crushing "The Mermaid Parade", the record's runaway best song, which finds Houck's narrator wandering around Coney Island to shake his mind off of a broken marriage, finally sputtering out with gut-piercing specificty, "Goddamn it, Amanda, goddamn it all."
All that said, there's no need to fret that quavering nature boy Houck's been lost entirely beneath all the musical carousing and Angeleno smog, not when the album also contains the spectral, gospel-haunted "Nothing Was Stolen (Love Me Foolishly)" and the evanescent, elliptical "Hej, Me I'm Light". Here's to Taking It Easy is a great record, but I feel like Houck's best is still in him-- the one where the deep roots of tradition will finally be inextricably fused with his own weird, shambling soul.
