''Are we getting any closer to me knowing what the point of this is", Davis enquires at one point during the seven extensive, rambling yet also somehow – contradictorily – focused tracks that make up New Threats From The Soul.
Initially the listener might be prone to ask the same. Distilling the sprawling blend of trod-upon but unbeaten inner monologues, wearily shrugging everyday absurdism and bittersweet observations of a really quite mad world getting ever more crazed at an alarming pace established by David Berman (Silver Jews/Purple Mountains) and Lambchop's Kurt Wagner, Louisville, Kentucky-based Davis is a proudly, even defiantly digressive writer, with tunes stretching up to 10 minutes and packing more verses than a poetry anthology, stretching like a well-knead dough to keep up with Davis's vividly sprawling free associations.
On paper, it sounds dangerously like a recipe for a self-indulgent yawn-fest riddled with clever wordplay (plenty of which is certainly included) and a dogged resistance to editing. In reality, there's a clear purpose and a beating heart to help elevate these family-sized word salads beyond mere verbal acrobatics: Davis is easily a gifted and eloquent enough writer and songwriter to make these super-sized stories written from the perspective of a dude who ‘’can’t remember the last time the good times got so bad’’ leave a permanent mark on the attentive listener’s mind.
True, the spectacular title track takes an extremely
generously scenic route around the rise and demise of a relationship the
protagonist has ditched in favour of embarking on a solitary odyssey
due to an incorrect assumption that he “could make a better life with
bubblegum and driftwood’’, and the dark nights (and days) of the soul
that follow (‘’your sweet nothings are still souring the sheets on the
bed and the threads of my clothes as I lie entrenched in my own
ignorance’’), but somehow Davis - reciting his conversational lyrics in a
desert-dry drawl akin to a Bill Callahan in dusty overalls - turns the
rambling catalogue of bad turns, could-have-been pathos, random pop
culture references (‘’I left my wallet in El Segundo’’, Jessica Rabbit,
etc) and heart-aching witticisms into something substantial and
heartfelt, true to life, even profoundly moving.
It helps that Davis and The Roadhouse Band have further
refined and sharpened their tunes and musically adventurous presentation
since 2023's stellar debut Dancing on the Edge. Having started
out trading in a fairly conventional offshoot of what used be called
alt. country with State Champion, Davis and Co. are never shy of
venturing to less well-mapped terrains from their rootsy yet hip
country-rock foundations. The title track, for example, struts like a
brawny (yet also limber) honky tonkin’ bar band in big hats, but it's
decorated with a lavishly irresistible and most likely knowingly cheesy
synth hook and a chorus you could land a helicopter on, rendering the
tune simultaneously an epically sprawling journey through even the
remotest corners of Davis’s mind and a properly catchy, singalong-ready
tune.
Elsewhere, both the rambunctious "Monte Carlo/No Limits"
and the beautifully keening sway of "The Simple Joy" (concise on this
album's standards, with Will Oldham pitching in on backing vocals on the
latter cut) exhibit a similar talent for contemporising vintage
country-hued classic rock ‘n’ roll moves that catapulted MJ Lenderman's Manning Fireworks
to such keenly deserved acclaim; Davis and Lenderman also share a
similar reluctance to slip into morbid moping even when tragedy strikes
in their songwriting. Granted, the mammoth "Mutilation Springs" risks
slipping irredeemably off-piste during its 10-minute digressions, but
it's equally epic but more delicate and downbeat counterpoint
“Mutilation Falls” positively swoons with its warm, electronically
tinged, cosmic calypso-hued groove and heart-melting melodic richness.
Some of the unexpected and as such extra-fresh thrill of the new of
encountering Davis’s debut with the Roadhouse Band may now have eased
into an instantly recognisable house style, but New Threats from the Soul provides another compelling flowering of a unique and idiosyncratic songwriting talent.
