"The first track on Kevin Morby's eighth album is called Badlands. It refers to the unforgiving terrain of the American midwest and also comes freighted with pop cultural references: the title of Terrence Malick's bleak 1973 neo-noir movie loosely based on the spree killings of Charles Starkweather; the ferocious track from Bruce Springsteen's 1978 album Darkness on the Edge of Town that depicts the lot of a frustrated blue-collar worker smashing in my guts in a nowhere town. Unforgiving terrain, violence fuelled by nihilistic rage, frustration: the listener is thus primed for a song on which Morby, who was raised between the farmland of Missouri and the suburbs of Kansas City, paints a stark picture of the America from which he hails."
"But Badlands isn't so straightforward. It's driven by big, punchy, slightly distorted drums, but the music that plays over them is strangely laid back: a clean, clear guitar plays a gently addictive riff, Morby's vocal has a conversational tone, there are sweet vocal harmonies. On the one hand, the lyrics talk about the big disaster we call home, but on the other suggest that heaven is a place on Earth beneath the golden sky. He concludes, with a shrug, I can't tell if I'm in heaven or the badlands."
"Cover art for Little Wide Open It sets the tone for an album that, in the best way, can't quite work out what it thinks, conjuring a series of grey areas. Morby is particularly acute on the weird push and pull exerted by one's home town, comforting familiarity and nostalgia (home smells like cinnamon and the sad passing of time) and doing battle with the sense that you never quite fit in: Where no one ever makes a sound except me on this guitar, as Morby puts it, a bluesy acoustic lick suddenly disrupting the austere sound of Cowtown for emphasis. But a sense of equivocation seeps into everything."
"On Natural Disaster, Morby can't decide whether his swings in mood are something that should be dealt with via medication or meditation or just a"
Badlands opens the album with references to bleak American landscapes and pop-cultural depictions of frustration and violence. Punchy, slightly distorted drums drive a strangely relaxed arrangement featuring a clean, clear guitar riff, conversational vocals, and sweet harmonies. The lyrics frame home as a disaster while also suggesting heaven exists on Earth under a golden sky, ending with uncertainty about where the singer belongs. The cover art and surrounding songs maintain grey-area ambiguity, balancing nostalgia and comfort with the feeling of not fitting in. Home town familiarity is contrasted with moments of disruption, including a bluesy acoustic guitar line. Natural Disaster continues the mood swings, leaving unclear whether they should be treated through medication, meditation, or something else.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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