The cornerstone of Devendra Banhart’s career was an album called Cripple Crow. Released in 2005, the 22-track record presented Banhart as an artist brimming with ideas, surrounded by friends, and firmly at the center of a movement that was beginning to gain traction outside his indie bubble. Since then, Banhart’s career has been characterized by less momentous events: a DOA major label debut, some forgettable collaborations, a few art books. Especially considering his newfound penchant for breezy, non-confrontational pop music, in 2016, it’s hard to imagine Banhart being at the forefront of anything. While the artists he came up with have been striking career-bests through dramatic reinvention and childhood psychoanalysis, Banhart seems mostly content to plink away at his keyboard and entertain himself.
On the whole, Ape in Pink Marble, his ninth album, doesn’t sound much different than Mala, his solid 2013 release. Teaming again with that album’s collaborators, Noah Georgeson and Josiah Steinbrick, Ape shares Mala’s wispy, low-stakes coziness. Despite the chilled-out atmosphere, however, Ape is a much darker listen, and its best moments are a reminder of why Banhart touched a nerve in the first place. Opener “Middle Names” laments the loss of a close friend over a chord progression not far from Dan Bejar’s “Chinatown.” The following “Good Time Charlie” is even better, tying a burbling folk melody to a weirdly touching narrative about a police officer. “Sometimes I breathalyze/And he gives the DUIs,” Banhart swoons before subverting the romance with a haunting question: “Is it love or just blood in his eyes?” With their gentle, psychedelic guitars and lilting vocals, these opening tracks come as close to Banhart’s sweet spot as he has since he first ventured out of it a decade back.
Around the time of his last album in 2013, Banhart addressed a common criticism of his recent music: “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a friend [say], in this tender and discreet voice, ‘It’s just you and me bro, and I want to tell you the truth: make a record of you and an acoustic guitar. Please.’” Despite his self-awareness and the intimate strength of the opening tracks, Ape is not the return-to-form his friends have been pushing for. It’s dragged down by the same aimlessness that’s affected most of Banhart’s releases. Things get particularly dire in the middle stretch, with a pair of goofy tracks—“Fancy Man” and “Fig in Leather”—that are at once grating enough to disrupt the flow of the album and still anonymous enough to soundtrack a Chipotle. Even Banhart’s best albums had their share of jokey self-indulgence (let’s not forget that the “real good time” Banhart promised to have in 2004’s “This Beard Is for Siobhan” was just between him and a false set of teeth), but these songs represent the nadir of his recorded output.
After those missteps, the album’s second half plays it fairly straight. Heavy on ballads and low on energy, Banhart sometimes comes in danger of scrubbing away any remnants of his once-magnetic personality. Occasionally, though, Ape approaches sparse brilliance. “Mourners’ Dance” is simple but effective, with a calming synth-and-vocals atmosphere that justifies Banhart’s Morrison-esque “raise the dead” intonations. Early single “Saturday Night” is the closest this album comes to a straight-up radio pop song—something that Banhart’s had his eye on ever since 2009’s “Baby”—and, with a dusky, OVO moodiness, it makes for one of the record’s finest moments.
Ape closes with a pair of languid, burnt ballads, almost forcing the listener to drift out of focus. These tracks, however, are not entirely without charm. “Lucky” might seem like a plain admission of admiration, with its lovesick chorus and soulful guitars, but deeper listens reveal it to be more like a sigh of relief at the end of a troubled relationship, a quiet acceptance that the flame is gone. “Baby I can see the sun is setting in your eyes,” he sings as guitars twinkle around him, “Another reason why I’m lucky.” There’s a sense of freedom in his voice, hinting at a clean break from the past and a move toward more comfortable, if less inspired, territory. It just goes to show that Banhart might be more in control than we think, even when it seems like he’s barely there.
