For many, the anti-folk movement was as cringe-worthy a passing fad as nu-metal – a platform for people that couldn’t sing or play guitar to sing and play guitar to great critical acclaim. For others, it was seen as the knocking down of an ivory tower – winking at the self-serious nature of bygone balladeers and finding joy in simple pleasures. Wherever you stood, there’s something to be said about several of its key perpetrators surviving the movement’s peak and subsequent passing; with Jeffrey Lewis being a primary example.
Lewis is still weaving together left-of-centre storytelling with weary, quivering vocals and succinct chord progressions. Here on his umpteenth release, the sometime-comic book artist is joined by backing band Los Bolts. The entire record is based around NYC’s outskirts (something his signature song, Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror, did in a roundabout way), and parts of Manhattan drag as a result (the meandering, middling Thunderstorm faring the worst). Even so, one can’t help but be charmed by Lewis’ off-kilter metaphors and his vividly-descriptive lyricism – that, and the fact that garage-rock ditty Sad Screaming Old Man is one of the year’s more strangely-silly numbers.
BY DAVID JAMES YOUNG
