Jason Lytle – Yours Truly, the Commuter
I am really enjoying this album, but I have to confess that my interview with Jason Lytle somewhat pissed in my chips, unfortunately. The reason? Well he said that his initial instinct was to make this album a big old mess, littered with half-finished thoughts, experimentation and imperfections. Over the course of a number of conversations with his management they slowly came to the conclusion that “you only get one chance to make a debut solo album”. Pooh. I really, really want to hear that messy album because the early Granddaddy stuff, where they were prone to all sorts of weirdness and strange changes of direction, was their best work, dammit.
His reasoning was that despite the fact that he actually likes to listen to really confrontational music like Metallica and Mastodon, he doesn’t really want to put his fans through that himself. Life is, he says, shitty enough. Personally I disagree with this line of reasoning altogether, although I suppose that if I were to show you an artist who recklessly and unapologetically pushed the boundaries at all times, then you could almost certainly show me one who made very, very little money from their work. There are a few exceptions of course, but rarely in the field of popular music.
So what we have is much closer to the Grandaddy of Sumday (I am not counting the somewhat stillborn Fambly Cat) rather than the Grandaddy of Under the Western Freeway. In fact the start of the album could be lifted right from the Sumday Sessions, from a stylistic perspective. It’s almost like a conscious olive branch to the fans who have waited so long for the album, and to those who are slightly sceptical about what will actually come of his music in the absence of the band itself.
Perhaps oddly for someone who has gone to a lot of effort to leave behind a lot of the aspects of modern life which he found so overwhelming, these themes do nevertheless still crop up quite frequently in this record. There are certainly tales of nature-based redemption which sound borderline autobiographical, but little of this record calls to mind a man who has redefined himself and left any kind of old life behind. Mind you, he pretty much said as much in the interview.
So eventually I find this album drifting to a quiet close with a distinct sense of ‘plus ca change…’ I really do like it, and Jason Lytle is still a terrific songwriter. But it certainly doesn’t feel like an album where he’s really pushed either himself or us, and as such I am never going to really love it, I don’t think.
Jason Lytle – Your Truly, the Commuter
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Jason Lytle – Flying Through Canyons
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I think the lack of comments on this record says a lot; I for one, looking forward to it, think it stinks.
No comment.
This review makes me want to listen … to The Sophtware Slump.
And Sumday. And Under the Western Freeway.
Those albums rock like bitches.
i don’t hear anything not to like about the 2 tunes you have posted.
right, i’ve listened to the whole album now and it certainly does not stink. i’m with you matthew, i’d have liked him to have done whatever he wanted rather than what he thought fans wanted, but some of the songs on this album are crackers and it’s definitely not a bad album in any way. i like.