Jim Allen sure knows how to get an indie music reviewer’s attention.
Last time around, I commented on Allen’s iconoclastic approach to composing a one-sheet—no publicist, no filter, no pretense, just a first-person narrative about his music, which turned out to be just as unaffected and authentic as his approach to describing it.
It also ensured that I’d pay attention when another one showed up. Allen describes the recipe for his new album Maybe Things Will Be Alright as: “two shakes of power pop, a jigger of roots rock, a splash of folk, and a sprig of alt country.”
Maybe also features an impressive collection of rock and roll notables that includes Peter Holsapple (The db’s), Richard Barone (The Bongos), Dorothy Moskowitz (United States of America), and Paul Conly (Lothar & The Hand People). His core band features Matt “Scrappy” Applebaum on electric & acoustic guitars, ukulele, and harmony vocals, C.P. Roth (Suzanne Vega) on keyboards, Paul Foglino on bass and Steve Goulding (Mekons / Graham Parker & The Rumour) on drums.
It’s quite the assemblage of talent, but what ultimately convinced me I needed to review this album was Allen’s sign-off: “I’ve been around long enough (My debut was in 1996; you do the math.) to know how things go. As a fiftysomething song jockey, I’m not expecting my modest rep to expand exponentially or anything. I just want as many people to listen to this as possible. (But not so desperately that I’d put it on Spotify, because f@#k them.)”
Right freaking on.
On to the music: Maybe Things Will Be Alright is just as stylistically dissociative as Allen’s recipe above might suggest.
The opening title track offers a realist’s argument for being open to optimism, set to a Sixties rock arrangement featuring Holsapple’s lead guitars, Hammond organ, bass, drums and chirping birds. “Maybe the thing you fear is just being scared,” declares Allen in his resonant baritone, as Holsapple harmonizes.
From there Allen dips into styles as varied as a Joe Jackson-y show tune (the acerbic, piano-based “Panic Button”), gentle country-rock (the cheerily blasphemous deconstruction of religion “Let My People Go To Sleep”), Sixties spooky-rock pastiche (the Zombies-adjacent “In A Cave,” featuring Barone), and Broadway lounge jazz (the guitar and piano ballad “Cry Until You’re Done,” whose narrator encourages a friend to let it all out).
The middle section of the album opens with the memorable line “Time don’t fly, it hobbles by with both legs in a cast” as Allen dips into the guitar-led country-blues “Downpour Blue,” before ranging into the Seventies Supertramp homage “Underground,” complete with “The Logical Song” organ tone. “Song For Byron” offers a serious-minded bit of acoustic chamber folk, featuring Roth on keening synth accents as Allen’s narrator compares his own travails to Byron’s. So of course he stylistically jump-cuts to the thumping electric blues of “They Get Up,” a rocking tune about zombies. I mean… yeah, why not?
“Where I Am” takes on a late-Sixties George Harrison feel, with Moskowitz and Conly on board for an Eastern-tinged number populated by mandolin, keys, and weird sonic effects. “Where I am is not where I belong” sings Allen, adding to the sense of dislocation. We come back to ground with “Covered In Snow,” a jaunty country-rock novelty tune about moving north: “I’m a shivering bastard from a sunny place / Panic is plastered all over my face / The season will freeze us, it’s twenty below / Sweet creeping Jesus, we’re covered in snow.”
Again: why not?
The album closes out with “It’s Hard,” a Southern-tinged slice of steady-on country-rock with piano and slide guitar and a background chorus complementing Allen’s “times are tough but I’m hanging in there” narrative of resilience.
Allen says Maybe Things Will Alright is the most “rock” of his half a dozen or so solo albums, which just further underscores the variety of styles and sounds present. What unites them is Allen’s slightly off-center sensibility and dedication to his songwriting craft. Maybe Things Will Be Alright delivers a kaleidoscopic trip through Allen’s imagination, a vivid landscape densely populated with moments worth experiencing.
