Skyway Man
★★★★
Flight Of The Long Distance Healer
MAMA BIRD. CD/DL/LP
A concept album about aliens. But good.
The near-incomprehensible concept – involving a cache of found letters and telepathic messages involving spiritual aliens – is either bonkers or, more likely, a ruse. No matter, Californian James Wallace’s third outing as Skyway Man is a cavalcade of insistent, harmony-laden delights. The summery veneer suggests a more fleet-of-foot Polyphonic Spree, but there’s both balm and darkness under the surface. The wise opener The Holding On (“When holding on kept you from healing…”) sets the tone and the lachrymose closer Do Something Good completes it, but Moonlight Thunder is a rare homage to The Kinks’ Apeman until the trombone and trumpet kick in; the near-title-track Long Distance Healing pulses like a quieter Muse, and the countrified The Mothlight reads like a deathbed confession. The irony, of course, is that Wallace doesn’t need letters or telepathic aliens to prop him up. He stands tall anyway.