Judah Bauer spent the better part of the 90s squirting out guitar licks for Jon Spencer, pausing briefly in 1996 to birth his requisite side project, the scraggly-but-earnest 20 Miles. Having convinced brother Donovan to spend four hours crouched in a studio, cranking out boorish, slappy blues-rock for the In the Red label (the session yielded a triple seven-inch package later that year), Bauer stumbled, unassumingly, into an entirely new musical pursuit: 20 Miles mixes American roots with scrappy blues rambling, fusing bar-band rock with ample rockabilly rolls. Shuffling through a variety of players (no two 20 Miles records boast quite the same lineup-- 2002's Keep It Coming was recorded in Bauer's New York apartment, with cameos from friends and neighbors), Bauer also secured himself an artistic outlet that is, shockingly, far more stable than his previous outfit. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's discography is notoriously mottled, and 20 Miles is Bauer's golden opportunity to wail consistent.
Each of Life Doesn't Rhyme's eleven tracks are strikingly coherent, near-infallible in their dogged composure. Accessible and clear, the album is easily 20 Miles' most sophisticated record to date, a superlative Bauer earned by sheepishly abandoning all the goofy, bleeding jubilance that made JSBX so hopelessly scattered. Now, Bauer's guitar shoots swiftly through his band's basic roots-rock, establishing prominence while still eschewing loping solos; Bauer's vocals, clean and wobbly, humbly offer quiet, plaintive observations ("My dirty laundry tops the list of my confusion").
Written in just eighteen days and recorded at London's lovingly archaic Toe Rag studios (on some presumably ancient gear), Life Doesn't Rhyme is still gloriously loose, far closer to the Delta blues in spirit than in sound: Musically, there's not too much here (beyond the obvious rock citations) to compare to Bauer's stubbly Fat Possum labelmates, but he's still tapped into the prickly honesty of classic blues yowlers-- nothing here is overwrought or unfelt.
The moping "Gypsy Babe" feels like swallowing a mugful of molasses, a slow, meandering love song layered over organ, bass, and drums-- thick and dripping, the track is also stubbornly subdued, Bauer's vocals barely rising and falling with the melody. "Drown the Whole World" opens with backwards guitar-swishing, Bauer's voice bouncing overhead; "Ship Is Sinking Fast" folds in piano and bold vocal confessions, a throbbing bassline backing up questions like, "Who's gonna be the judge? Who's gonna be the hangman?"
Depending on how you like your blues (and in a post-Stripes rock landscape, we should all have a preference), 20 Miles will either be a curious footnote to or a welcome antidote from Bauer's work with the Blues Explosion. Solidly written and powerfully played, Life Doesn't Rhyme is an unflinching slice of American rock.
