Amos Lee
spent the years just prior to 2024's
Transmissions
exploring the work of his influences, including the lyrical west coast jazz of '50s icon
Chet Baker
and the poetic Americana of
Lucinda Williams
. He seemingly brings all of this experience to bear here, striking an assured balance between ragged folk intimacy and gorgeously arranged Baroque pop. It was produced by
Lee
and largely recorded live over a one-week period in upstate New York. The result is an album that illuminates all of the raw emotionality and literate qualities of the singer/songwriter's best work, but with a broad musicality that feels ambitious, even as it remains loose and never overly planned out. Like a good director,
seems to have thought hard about all the details he wanted to capture, working things out with his band ahead of time so he didn't have to work too hard and just settle into the moment once the tape started rolling. The album opens in deceptively low-key fashion with "Built to Fall," a literate,
Bob Dylan
-esque song that starts with a spare piano and vocal passage before pushing outwards with a haunting backing vocal and string orchestration. Piano figures heavily throughout
, as on the rustic gospel number "Carry On," where
sings delicate harmonies against a spiraling keyboard arpeggio and banjo and pedal steel accents. There are other bold creative moves here, as on the '70s glitter-rock-esque ballad "Madison," where he coos in falsetto, evoking a striking blend of
Harry Nilsson
and
David Bowie
. Artful still are the gorgeously breezy and straightforward country and folk-rock of "Darkest Places" and "Hold Tight," anthems that underscore the long-simmering
the Band
Neil Young
influences running through his work. They are also songs that find
continuing to juxtapose his own regret and longing with a wider, more universal emotional palette, one imbued with poetic imagery that sticks with you. On "Darkest Places," he paints a picture of an artist at loose ends in a society teetering on collapse. He sings, "I've been looking out for letters and waiting for a stranger to come knock me out/I've been wanderin' around like a man/Fought in a war he knows never would be won/Like an empty Budweiser bottle in the window glowin' in the sun." With
,
has made an album that's both cozy and daring, one that reaches for connection and pulls you deep into it. ~ Matt Collar