AMERICAN troubadour and chronicler of that nation’s current state – that’s how Jackson Browne sounds on his 14th studio album.
More so than before, Browne espouses a sharp political view, leaning to the left rather than plain old liberal in the good ol’ USA.
But besides the polemic – never more sharp or sad than on The Long Way Around containing a snipe at gun laws in the lines “the seeds of tragedy are there in what we feel we have the right to bear” – the album is also deeply personal.
Lyrically, it’s spiky and succinct and melded to that so smooth voice, which is as warming and welcoming as hot coffee at a winter dusk. There’s ample that is pertinent too, as on If I Could Be Anywhere and Which Side?
And there are sweet echoes of early influences with ten tracks book-ended by opener The Birds Of St Marks – eerily Roger McGuinn-like – and the delectable closer, Here, which would sit perfectly among the sophisticated simplicity of the Beatles Revolver classic.
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