Stu Ruiz takes a look at Portugal. The Man's newest album, The Satanic Satanist.

     Since officially forming in 2006, the band Portugal. The Man has managed to put out wildly varied albums each year, drawing influences from indie rock, soul, blues, psychedelic, hard rock, progressive, and hip hop.  While past releases have showed a knack for unusual song structures and freak-out jams, their latest release could easily be labeled both their most accessible and straightforward.  That isn’t to say that The Satanic Satanist is a compromise or reach for a mainstream audience, but rather a shift of focus towards classic pop song songwriting and gritty soul.  Somehow, this hodgepodge of styles works and has turned into a stellar album.  

     The album opens with “People Say”, a song with a highly catchy melody and guitar line.  Singer, songwriter, and guitarist John Gourley alternates between soulful singing and country-rock inspired licks, giving the song a very positive vibe despite its loose narrative of the powerful’s disrespect for human cost in lines such as “I’m a president’s son, I don’t need no soul…what a lovely day, we won the war, may have lost a million men but we got a million more”.  

     The vocals are right up front for the majority of the album.  Gourley’s voice takes on an affecting falsetto throughout, able to alternately cut through the mix and soar above it when necessary.  The strong melodies make it easy to overlook the surprising amount of depth offered in each of the songs.  The keyboard work offered by Ryan Neighbors adds flourishes deep in the mix that don’t reveal themselves for dozens of listens, while also commanding the occasional lead.

     Gourley’s songwriting certainly forms the basis of the album, but it’s the rhythm section that carries the songs and pushes them to another level.  Bassist Zachary Carothers manages to accomplish the rare feat of being both funky and melodic.  His ability to lock into a rhythm while simultaneously exploring the space and limits of a song (as proven in past release Church Mouth) is impressive throughout, specifically on the funky “Lovers In Love” and pounding “Gun & Dogs”.  On the kit side of the rhythm section drummer, Garrett Lunceford shows off the wide swath of beats at his disposal, contributing classic rock rhythms on “People Say”, impressive swing on “Lovers in Love”, and a monster of a stomp on “The Home”.

     There isn’t a wasted second on the Satanic Satanist.  Every song concludes almost as quickly as it began and blends right into the next, giving the album a cohesiveness while also sustaining a sense of urgency throughout, flowing into the album closer, “Mornings”.  The song starts with a haunting guitar solo backed by gospel style organs before morphing into  a minor chord section that has Gourley musing about the passing of days, while building up to the emotional chorus “The people found, the mountain climbed up from that hole in the ground, through the crack in the sky, threatened to fall…”.  The song then changes to a more positive vibe with similarly conflicted lyrics that leave the listener unable to wholly conclude how to feel.  The sense of confusion is finally capped by the final refrain “We’ll be just fine, no I don’t believe.”

     With the Satanic Satanist, Portugal. The Man may have stayed away from some of their more experimental tendencies, but they have made what might be their deepest album, both musically and thematically.  The album isn’t without fault; sometimes the melodies can sound a touch overly familiar, and many of the songs are over far too soon, but these are minor gripes in an overall remarkable package.  To put it simply, this album needs to be heard.

5/5 Wooves