Dead Oceans
Here’s to Taking it Easy the latest album from Matthew Houck’s Phosphorescent sacrifices the haunted weary folk he mastered on 2007’s Pride for the good old boy country he explored on To Willie his 2009 Willie Nelson tribute. It seems that while trying to get into the mind of Nelson Houck lost some of his individuality.
From the opening strains of “It’s Hard to be Humble (When You’re from Alabama)” it’s clear that Nelson’s influence has taken hold. A honky-tonk piano and woozy horns kick off the album and usher a shit-kicking barnstormer diametrically opposed to the lonely dirges of Pride . It’s a jarring statement that this Phosphorescent is a different beast but unfortunately doesn’t play to Houck’s strengths.
Easy is at its best when the tempo slows and Houck’s ragged vocals stand out from his band’s pedal steel guitars and other country accoutrements. During these gentler moments the album approaches the devastating beauty Houck has previously captured but when the band kicks things up a notch they hew too close to convention to register strongly. The album never fully recedes into the country-rock crowd but neither does it stand apart as firmly as what Houck has done before.
