Review Summary: Tell me, whatever's left of the breath of a song?
The moment I became permanently hooked on
Spectral Lines was a little more than halfway through “Horse No Rider” when Josh Ritter belts out, on the heels of fluttering strings,
what is love anyway but the prettiest bird, singing such a bitter song? There’s something oddly healing about the line, despite its negative connotation. It feels simple but poetic; universal yet undoubtedly inspired by the personal – and
that just about sums up Josh Ritter’s songcraft in general. He’s never been the flashiest writer, opting for plaintive folk that just happens to flourish at all the right times. His eleventh full-length LP continues that tradition, but it also feels undeniably
astral – as if Ritter wanted to take his entire essence as a musician and use it to draw lines between the stars, connecting galaxies so that everything can, even if just for one moment, make sense.
Spectral Lines is a batch of quietly luminous tracks that feel just as interlocked as the secrets of the universe, sharing pianos that blossom to stunning effect, vocal harmonization that whisks your mind off toward the ether, guitars with just enough bite to lend traction, and seamless transitions that give the entire experience an effortless, elegant flow. The melodies and lyrics alike take time and emotional proximity to draw out, with immediacy taking a back seat to each song’s propensity for lushness. But not unlike the glowing orb on the album’s cover, the hooks – however subtle they may be – do eventually reveal themselves along with their unparalleled beauty. Each time, it’s like unearthing a gem.
Josh Ritter billed this album as something of an anti-record in premise, where the oft-used term refers to a
recording of where someone
was at a particular point in time as opposed to where they’re going. Although the idea seems impossible to pull off in a literal sense,
Spectral Lines comes close. The messages here project outward rather than inward, with timeless truths told through the lens of a genre as enduring as folk:
The world puts its whole foot down on the little guy / And grinds him on down, back to the dust from whence he came. When the lyrics are so relatable, and the melodies are as insanely memorable as they are on, say, the effervescent “For Your Soul”, the entirety of
Spectral Lines begins to feel more like an ageless navigation tool for life than a mere collection of off-the-cuff songs.
While the breathtaking aesthetic of
Spectral Lines easily lends itself to waxing poetic, the
spirit of this thing is a bit harder to nail down. There are junctures that feel like a warm embrace, but the album is also capable of getting dark in a hurry, whether it’s Ritter’s bleak outlook on love (
You fall in love you learn / Whatever burns will burn), the numerous allusions to death (
We're all flesh and bone or dead / And you're no different than the rest, and like the others you'll forget), or the eerie references to the present (
If the world is getting kinder, I haven't noticed yet / And if we're gonna make it, things are gonna have to change / Someday there's gonna be justice / Will it be today?) Perhaps that’s the point, as
Spectral Lines traverses both the lightness and darkness of what it means to
be. On the final verse of the stirring “Any Way They Come”, Ritter lays it all out there for his listeners – present or future – to take to heart:
I came here with nothing, I'll be gone before long / Tell me, whatever's left of the breath of a song? / But if that's all there is, it's more than enough, and it wasn't for nothing / I gave it all of my love. With the shimmeringly beautiful, subtly dark, and piercingly existential
Spectral Lines, Josh Ritter has crafted his eternal song.
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