Walk Thru Me JOYFUL NOISE

Storied indie-rock duo’s first full-length in 25 years. By Sharon O’Connell

CARATOTMAN

Committedto thelonghaul: JohnDavis and Lou Barlow

8/10

FOR those who’d been hankering after a Lou Barlow/John Davis status update, it came in 2022 with the (unannounced) release of “Feel It If You Feel It”. Hatched during pandemic isolation and featuring two tracks plus a remix of each, it was their first recording of new material in 23 years. This constituted a fair-sized tremor on the US indie-rock landscape, yet it landed without fanfare, its familiar mix of lo-fi synth-pop, heartfelt alt.rock and beats-based atmospherics packaged under a title both gnomic and diffident. It also arrived with the promise that a full album was on the way.

This 10-song set, then, is the follow-through, though last year there was a limited-edition EP, “It Just Goes With…”, which rather than a cautious edging forward suggests that after such a long lapse, the pair saw no reason to rush. However, they’ve also made it clear that Walk Thru Me is part of a continuum, by riffing on the title of their debut EP, 1993’s “Walk Through This World With The Folk Implosion”. That emphatic intent is underlined by the music, which pushes rhythm to the fore and expands Davis’s arsenalofnon-traditionalrockinstruments. It also hits perhaps the sweetest spot yet between reflective soul with underground-rock roots and lithe art pop with intriguing detail. As always, there’s a deep emotional burn in play, whether songs examine the militarisation of sports culture (“Bobblehead Doll”) or what it means to be a father (“My Little Lamb”).

Since they started work on what would become the new album 670 miles apart, Davis (in North Carolina) and Barlow (Massachusetts) took on different areas of responsibility – respectively, soundscaping and texture, and vocal melodies and lyrics, with remote support from producer Scott Solter. The pair were relaxed about allowing songs to develop over time; in fact, both “Crepuscular” and “My Little Lamb” appeared on “It Just Goes With…” as works in progress. By April 2022 the pair had 11 basic songs, which they spent the rest of the year finishing with Solter.

“Crepuscular” opens the set, reintroducing the unforced, grainy yearning of Barlow’s voice and the brooding, warmly melancholic melodic lines,tippedslightlyofftheiraxisbyplayful counterpoints, that have long been part of The Folk Implosion’s appeal. The song is aptly titled: around lyrics that express the sheer futility of being imprisoned by his own mindset (“Can’t fight the daylight/ Gotta let it all in”), swirls a faintly wyrd-folk air of unsettlement. “The Day You Died” follows, sombre in a very different way, Davis’s distinctively reedy voice recalling the death of his father in straight-talking yet hugely touching detail. “Your mind once so acute, so strange and so astute/Couldn’t even tell your tongue what to do/Couldn’t swallow, couldn’t whistle, couldn’t chew”, he sing-speaks, to a strikingly upbeat tune, rippled with saz, tar and setar and carried by cantering beat patterns. After the title track, with its easy, faintly military swing and Barlow’s tender, Peter Gabriel-ish voice musing on the importance of self-love in a romantic partnership, comes “My Little Lamb”, with his reflections on fatherhood: “If they believe, that’s not up to me/They gotta wonder on their own”. Davis’s “Bobblehead Doll”, which opens with sweet saz trills and a light, Talking Heads-like energy, is the set’s midpoint; on the other side sits Barlow’s “The Fable And The Fact”, his musings on a dying relationship and the “classic”, urgently whining four-string electric guitar suggesting an older song. Then comes “Right Hand Over My Heart”, an irresistible number with moody Omnichord and synth motifs, and at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, the sinuous “Water Torture”, in which a disgusted Davis addresses his country’s barbarity practised in the name of world order. “Moonlit Kind” closes the set, an existential hymn with an agreeably lazy, Yeasayer-ish groove: “I’m the moonlit kind that can’t say no/I don’t unwind I just go high/And touch the sky”, croons Barlow, and later, “Always wanted to believe/That there’s a reason”, before the song drifts off into the ether as a light, psychedelic reel.