Cass McCombs
Humor Risk
Rating: 2.9/5.0
Label: Domino
Northern California native Cass McCombs has never quite produced “easy listening” music. Sure, he’s known for his gentle, lolling melodies, minimalist textures, and emotionally direct lyrics. At his best, as on “County Line” from Wit’s End, the first of two McCombs LPs released this year, he reaches a kind of cathartic, quasi-sentimental lyricism. But despite whatever emotional connections McCombs might make with the listener, there’s usually a number of distancing devices in place keeping him at arm’s length. On Wit’s End, the songs’ extended running times (only a couple under five minutes) and the record’s overall quiet demeanor challenged the listener by keeping the emotions broiling just below the surface.
Now the prolific McCombs is back with a second LP in the same year. Humor Risk is more sonically complex and lyrically playful than its predecessor. Working again with producer Ariel Rechtshaid, McCombs creates a harder-edged, slightly grittier sound. The gentle keyboard pads, acoustic guitars, and bare piano lines frequenting Wit’s End are supplemented by electric guitars and psychedelic synths. The lyrics adopt multiple voices and allude to elements of California culture as varied as Scientology, drugs and an off-kilter brand of Catholicism. While these attempted artistic innovations make for a more intellectually engaging listening experience than Wit’s End, they simultaneously result in an even more emotionally distant record.
I get a feeling of alienation when I listen to Humor Risk partly because of McCombs’ use of multiple voices in his semi-abstract lyrics. While the universal themes of lost love, sexual frustration and moral ambiguity resound throughout the record, the particulars of plot are not always clear. One minute, we’re inside the narrative of a convicted drug dealer, whereas the next minute we’re hearing from the secretary at a mannequin gallery. McCombs’ darkly sardonic tone sometimes stands in the way of legitimate pathos. For example, “To Every Man His Chimera” begins with the cleverly ironic lines, “Not you again, I thought you died/ I thought you were killed on your wedding night/ Not you again, hypocrite/ You’ve come to ask me to kill you again, is that it?” This sarcastic tendency sometimes leads to lyric writing that sounds forced, as in the line, “California makes me sick/ Like trying with a rattlesnake your teeth to pick,” found later in the same song. Because McCombs speaks through a diverse array of quirky voices, we never feel a direct emotional connection with any one character. The one exception is closing track “Mariah,” a plain account of a woman’s unfulfilled desires (“Mariah is aware/ That most cabs won’t go down there/ Brimming with desire/ Mariah/ Eager, burning tears/ From thirty thousand years/ Welling up inside her“).
McComb’s dark, idiosyncratic lyrics are accompanied by an appropriately edgier background of sounds. The crunchy electric guitars on “Mystery Mail” match the gritty tale of childhood friendship, drug dealing, crime and punishment. The record becomes a bit tedious after a while because of the monotonous quality of each track. “The Living Word” features a jangly, Byrds-inflected guitar sound repeated throughout the entire song. There is little variation in the musical texture during the track’s almost six minute running time. The most musically interesting tune is “The Same Thing,” one that begins as a folky acoustic number and ultimately employs a trippy, high-pitched organ line reminiscent of the Doors. The sense of musical evolution on this track is uncharacteristic of the album as a whole.
No doubt Humor Risk will do little to bring new followers into the Cass McCombs fold. However, fans of his previous work will appreciate his willingness to experiment with different sounds and lyrical techniques. While Wit’s End will be the 2011 Cass McCombs record that everyone most likely remembers, Humor Risk will be looked at as a peculiar diversion, a flawed, yet noble, effort by an artist not content to stay in one place too long.
