Bill Callahan

Sometimes I Wish We

Were An Eagle (2009)

(3 out of 4)

 

Review By Jordan Cronk: When Bill Callahan retired the Smog moniker in late 2005, it felt like a logical conclusion to a fifteen year career of reflective melancholia. A River Ain’t Too Much To Love, Callahan’s underrated final album produced under the name Smog, was a record characterized by its comparatively content demeanor. After years of constant searching and longing, it seemed as though Callahan had finally found what he was looking for—and maybe he had. It was around this time that Callahan began a relationship with renaissance harpist Joanna Newsom, who had played on A River Ain’t Too Much To Love and subsequently toured the States with Callahan as a sort of folk-y low-key double-bill. The good vibes continued on Woke On A Whaleheart, the first Callahan album billed under his given name, and not coincidentally his loosest and least substantial offering in years. I realize that it’s possible that I’m putting too much credence in Callahan’s tendency to reflect his current life through his musical output, but based on his wonderful new record, Sometime I Wish We Were An Eagle, it doesn’t seem an unreasonable contextual outline.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, Callahan’s relationship with Newsom ended amicably sometime after the release of Whaleheart, and like clockwork we have a second solo album that is just a bit more morose and contemplative than Callahan’s recent work. It would be unfair however to see this slight reversion as a direct outgrowth of his emotional state, as Callahan frequently switches personas and lyrical points-of-view throughout the album’s nine tracks. What makes Eagle such a triumph—and, by extension, one of the strongest Callahan records to date—is the way he can wrench poignancy and emotion from characterizations that may or may not be directly proportional to his own state of mind. Take the opening track, “Jim Cain,” for example, which reflects on the career of Mildred Pierce novelist James M. Cain while doubling up as a nice compendium of Callahan’s own career arc. His unassuming delivery of the line, “I used to be darker, but then I got lighter, then I got dark again”, neither undersells nor oversells the parallel sentiment.

Despite the fact that a lot of the lyrical content of the record presents feelings of a yearning, unsatisfied narrator, Eagle still comes across as fairly easy listening by Callahan standards, due in no small part to the subtly intricate yet vitally important arrangements, which are both more robust and more generously integrated than in the past. Callahan’s main collaborator on these arrangements is Brian Beattie, whose string and horn work is commendable in its own right, yet never before have these accoutrements supported Callahan’s polarizing baritone in such a way that it actually increases the impact of his already vivid wordplay. “My Friend,” with its swooping violin scrapes and driving percussion, may be the most propulsive Callahan track since “Held” from 1999's cult classic Knock Knock, yet it’s the pregnant pause before Callahan growls out the title phrase that spikes the track with irony (what makes me think this person may not really be Callahan’s friend?). Meanwhile, the rubbery bass and galloping drums of “Eid Ma Clack Shaw” underpin an honest-to-god melody, something that Callahan doesn’t much go in for, at least not directly.

In the end though, it’s the consistency of the whole that elevates Sometimes I Wish I Were An Eagle to the top ranks of 2009 singer/songwriters accomplishments. Over the years, Callahan records have rarely eclipsed the nine or ten song plateau, and the handful of duds scattered throughout Whaleheart stood out as a result of its slim frame. On the contrary, Eagle features nine (or technically eight, one’s a sighing female-led pillow rack) fully-formed, consistently intriguing tracks, polished off with the brilliant ten minute finale “Faith/Void.” Callahan has long since worked within repetitious structures, though it’s this transcendent hymn to religious uncertainty that ties a bow of finality on an album overflowing with contradictions and ambiguities. However, it’s that striking voice that will forever drape Callahan’s work in the personal and the intimate. There’s an important hint in that first person pronoun cleverly integrated into the album’s title. Callahan not only sings of himself; he sings of you and sings of me. He sings of us all.

Last Word:

Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle, Bill Callahan’s 13th album, and second under his given name, features a welcome return to the lyrical darkness of his work as Smog, while at the same time working within a more peaceful sonic environment.

Review By:
Jordan Cronk, Music Editor

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