/WUVT-FM 90.7/ - Cass McCombs Wit's End Review

Welcome to www.cassmccombs.com! You click on the black-and-white logo, then you see some giant black Calibri font tour dates (none near me, sadly), then if you scroll down further you get about a screen’s worth of blankness, then…that’s it! Congratulations, you’ve just explored the official web promo for Cass McCombs’ new album Wit’s End, which might I add is the follow-up to 2009’s Catacombs which was received very well in music circles, even receiving best new music on Pitchfork Media, something most bands would kill for. (Okay, a bit after this review was written they wrote some more stuff on the main page, but my mouse still has dreams of clicky-clicky in its head.)

Mysteriousness through simplicity: that’s Cass McCombs. As cool as it would be to follow him on Twitter it’s never going to happen and you should probably be happy about it. The only clear glimpse you’ll get a McCombs is through his music. He realizes this and imbibes it with a special meaning and you realize it and look closely for that meaning.

Cass McCombs has a pretty large back catalogue. His career since 2001 has been a foray through pop styles ranging from Crosby Stills and Nash seductive twang to The Who kerang kerang. What most people seemed to like about 2009’s Catacombs was that it seemed like McCombs had finally found a home in folk music. ‘My Sister My Spouse’ was tangled in trip-hop drum rhythms, ‘Lionkiller Got Married’ was carved out of No Wave granite, and, hell, almost every song had its unorthodox (but never ill-fitting) guitar lick or vocal part, but every song was also at its core unshakably folk music. The last 3 tracks of Catacombs had no bells and whistles, just straight up folk.

Wit’s End is a curveball. The first track and lead single ‘County Line’, which was on blogs several months prior to Wit’s End’s release and sculpted people’s expectations for Wit’s End, is in a vein similar to the songs of Catacombs. It’s a sort of meta-folk song, encompassing different folk and pop styles from different eras. The 1970s soul pop electric piano (played by the traditionally guitarist McCombs) is eyebrow-raising, but mostly this song is the heartfelt folk you would expect of McCombs, right down to the mournful “whoa whoa whoa”s peppering the chorus.

The remaining seven tracks of Wit’s End couldn’t sound less like ‘County Line’. Feeling and fluidity are traded in for stiff calculation. Modernity is exchanged for something that’s not just old, it’s Baroque. And the guitar, well, it’s traded in for the piano, and not a fancy one, the dusty upright kind you might have poked around on when you were nine at your grandma’s house.

Tailing ‘County Line’ is ‘The Lonely Doll’, the stiffest and most calculated song on Wit’s End. It’s in ¾ time and McCombs’ vocal part follows simple quarter notes. It’s a traditional lullaby, really, and McCombs’ narrative lyrics about a young girl in her beautiful room would make it 100% traditional if he wasn’t watching her through a window after following home a drunk from the bar. Like so many McCombs songs, not just on this album but throughout his career, you have to read between the lines a bit to see the bile that a song is pumped with.

‘Memory’s Stain’, ‘Hermit’s Cave’, and the album’s nine minute concluding song ‘A Knock Upon The Door’ are from the same mold as ‘The Lonely Doll’, trotting along in a 3/8 waltz that you can practically hear your piano teacher chiding you to keep even. ‘Hermit’s Cave’ and ‘A Knock Upon The Door’ also opt for narrative lyrics that require a little reading into to get. ‘A Knock Upon The Door’ is especially cryptic, what seems like comment on the modern music industry transcribed in Nietzsche-like allegory.

Though these Baroque tunes (the lyrics to Wit’s End are printed in English and German) are extremely stiff and generally not very groovy, they are at times chillingly real-feeling, something one can imagine McCombs strives for in his music given his lifestyle. Nine minute songs in our culture have to a be epic and ever-changing, not the plain-Jane eight measures of ‘A Knock Upon The Door’ repeated for what feels like an eternity. Lyrics have to be quick and easy to digest, not poetic allegories you have to strenuously unravel. Pop music as a whole is supposed to be leisure, but in Wit’s End McCombs makes it work, both for him with his strictly measured songs and for the listener.

McCombs’ Baroque tunes also create a sharp contrast to the two more emotive songs on Wit’s End, the aforementioned ‘County Line’ and the minimal but beautiful ‘Saturday Song’. Despite ‘Saturday Song’s 3-piece band arrangement with bass and drum parts that probably have the musicians nodding off at the three minute mark, McCombs’ pop acumen shines through subtly but confidently in his beautiful piano arrangement. McCombs’ lyrics are stark and personal, wrapped in feelings of grayness and lethargy, feelings everyone has felt before and, as McCombs notes, can strike at any time. When McCombs coos “She’s everything today” you don’t know if its hope or the deadliest sarcasm imaginable.

Though Cass McCombs’ Wit’s End is difficult to digest at times, I think it’s very intentionally supposed to be that way. I also don’t think this is a completely new path for McCombs; this just a merge ramp between roads, and that said the style of Wit’s End is something that won’t happen again for McCombs, even in part, making this album a very interesting listen. Think of Wit’s End as an enchanted beginner’s piano book you find in your grandma’s attic that releases mystical spirits when you play its songs. Maybe after playing it enough you’ll realize that all piano books release spirits, some are just easier to see than others.