In terms of genre classification, artists who describe themselves as singer-songwriters often elicit an immediate condemning shrug from listeners. Perhaps it’s the fact that so many of them sound like a coffeehouse wash-up, or in some cases “Lay Lady Lay” Bob Dylan without the songwriting prowess, Gary Jules without the shockingly accurate view of normality or Jack Johnson (because, unless you’re Jack Johnson himself, it just doesn’t work).
However, in the case of Seattle-son Damien Jurado, who developed musically alongside former-bandmate David Bazan, singer-songwriter doesn’t necessarily mean ignorable. On Caught in the Trees Jurado fuses just enough fun wordplay and well-executed melancholy with his deceptively simple ballads to make this often-attempted style far more musically rewarding.
Caught in the Trees certainly has the expected mix of softly-strummed tunes and breezy vocals, but it’s Jurado’s elegant command of language that makes it so listenable. In the case of the single “Gillian Was a Horse,” the track is sonically a clapping, jangly, sing-along affair but is punctuated with statements that are downtrodden to the point of hilarity. Midtrack Jurado sings in a country-tinged harmony, “I don’t care if I’m the only one who’s not payin’/ Cuz Honey I am done staying up all night waiting.” And the satisfyingly gritty finger pointing of “Gillian Was a Horse” is merely an introduction into just such lyrical color.
Jurado seems to understand the nature of faulted relationships, whether they be with others or the inanimate sources of addiction, and he obsession and has an unusually poignant style of conveying these ideas lyrically. On “Coats of Ice,” for example, the songwriter notes even in the throes of post-breakup spite, neither party is particularly well off. He ties this succinctly to a sometimes more important relationship with chemical dependence, singing “You’ll be happy to know the situation is worse/ The endless bottles of pills that never seem to work” and “You look like you could use a rest/ You look like you’d be better dead.” He elegantly shows the two types of relationships aren’t that different.
In terms of musical constructions, best tracks are far more edgy than those of the average folk singer or acoustic-guitar toting troubadour. Similar to the effervescent trilling of Bon Iver, Jurado’s voice often sits at a timbre just shy of a distraught whisper in a manner that delicately cuts through the high-tempo strumming of breakup-song “Trials” and the string-touched emotional pleas of “Last Rights.”
But at times the album also incorporates a more grating indie-rock technique, perhaps as a partial return to Jurado’s days with hardcore act Coolidge (when he worked with Bazan). Jurado’s voice often takes on a Frank Black drawl, straining at the right emotional moments yet growling enough to spice up tracks like the Black-doppelganger, “Caskets.” Folk-country styling also graces some of the 13-song album’s best tracks, such as the smoky-bar riffing of “Best Dress” and the male-female harmonies of “Everything Trying.”
It’s not that the modern bard is necessarily dead, but Damien Jurado certainly illuminates why so many will never find great success. Caught in the Trees isn’t a perfect album, and at times seems somewhat simplistic. But Jurado’s subtle nuances as a commentator on the scummiest moments in life separate him from many less-talented contemporaries, and he’s musically able to incorporate small touches of variety that prevent the album from getting tiresome. Caught in the Trees is definitely worth a listen, and with time proves to be full of salvageable poetic depth. And it works just as well as organic background music as the best singer-songwriter albums do.
Damien Jurado will perform at the Memorial Union Terrace on Saturday, Sept. 27 as part of WSUM’s Snake on the Lake festival.
3 1/2 stars out of 5
