Review Summary: Come With Me If You Want to Stay Confused
When it comes to music listening is there anything better than the ‘classic album’? Surely a ‘perfect’ or ‘near-perfect’ set of songs is the absolute pinnacle, The Holy Grail? Well, for the longest time I believed that but now I’m not so sure…no, now what I might enjoy even more, what I might find all the more fascinating, is an album that truly confounds. Humour me but please take ten seconds of your day to stare at that album art and try and predict what it means for the musical content of the associated album. Whatever you’re thinking, ‘Come With Me…’ won’t sound like that.
I went into my first listen cold, I hadn’t checked the pre release singles and I’d hardly thought of Devon Welsh the last five or six years, let alone played any of his music. Another ‘great, so you made it through Covid’ reacquaintance, but beyond that I had no idea what opening track ‘You Can Do Anything’ would actually sound like. Well, as much as I could appreciate it was a lot more strident than his trademark ballads, what with all its bubbling FX and drum n' bass breaks, I was ready to pull the plug and declare a shit show. By the time Welsh is reappropriating the lyrics of ‘What Becomes of the Broken Hearted’ I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
None of the following five tracks were as in your face ‘bad taste’ as the opener, in fact each had elements I could instantly enjoy, and yet there was still a disjointed feel I couldn’t shake; would this album ever make sense? ‘Fooled Again’ had a bedroom pop appeal , ‘That’s What We Needed’ was all skittering beats and lung busting positivity, and ‘Heaven Deserves You’ channelled big vocal ‘80s synth ballads. The problem beyond there being no consistent genre or style was a nagging doubt that any of these songs were wholly satisfying and more than that, a doubt that any felt fully completed. So far in the ratings stakes up to track six we were looking at a 3 out of 5, and effectively complete confusion.
Track seven, ‘Brother’, is the turning point and from those first acoustic guitar chords matched with a Welsh vocal of pure purity he’d got me sitting up and listening again. This was also the first song of a few in a row that would tap into the emotional accumulations knocking around inside my head; last year I had a falling out with my brother and this was locking into that. Next was ‘Twenty Seven’, another sort of ballad, this time resonating with my memories of how early adulthood felt - the stoic cry of ‘hallelujah for the miracle’ getting to the crux.
Most impressive of all was ‘Best Laid Plans’ with its lyrics concerning a lost friendship, and by pure chance the night before I’d dreamt of a friend I’d lost touch with about a decade ago; it was uncanny and bizarre, this muddled album was connecting deeply again and again, Welsh’s vocals suddenly growing into some sort of a wonder. ‘Before the Moon Was Full’ kept the momentum going, once again nostalgic, impassioned and reflective. ‘Sister’ was the obvious counterpoint to the earlier ‘Brother’ and again a short but compelling effort, before the album finally wraps up on the mellow ‘Alone’. The second half of this album struck me as being close to a classic though how much of that was due to associations and resonance that was personal I was unsure.
At the final judgement I’m still confused by this release, as it contains some of my favourite songs of the year so far, but equally I can imagine many rightly dismissing it as messy, unfinished sounding or too unfocused. All I can say is ‘Come With Me…’ is the 2024 release that's commanded the most replays in the shortest time period for me - so I think I’m maybe looking for something here better than a ‘classic’ or ‘confounding’ album…a classic AND confounding album. I hope this proves to be that, but it’ll take at least another twenty listens to know for sure….
