Tom Brosseau

Posthumous Success

(FatCat)

Record Review by Amber Henson

It’s always weird coming upon an established artist and listening to their latest album as your first experience of them.  Such it was for me with Tom Brosseau.  His most recent album Posthumous Success is his eighth, but my first (where have I been?).  So, even though he’s still evolving, he’s in the middle of his journey, whereas usually I review bands who are at their beginning.

I enjoy folk music, if it has a good melody and especially if it’s upbeat more than down.  That’s the way that Posthumous starts out, but then it goes down a path I’m not sure I’m interested in following.  The first four tracks out of the thirteen on the album (man, Brosseau is really asking for it with that title and that number of songs) are acoustically based, melodically uplifting, and pleasingly familiar.  But then track five, “You Don’t Know My Friends” is dissonant and distracting.  And the album never recovers from there.

Every few songs there are instrumental tracks that are quite enjoyable, and employ banjos, pianos, and the occasional flute.  The album is produced well, showing off Brosseau’s very smooth voice.  Interestingly, the first track and the last are the same song, just with different approaches. The song, “Favorite Color Blue,” sounds much better the first time around.  Considering how the tracks go from melodic to jarring, it’s almost like the entire album is morphs between the beginning and the end.

Altogether, though, I enjoy Brosseau.  His lyrics remind me of Jeremy Messersmith and his voice is practically a double for Luke Doucet.  Happily, he sings less about liquor, though, similar to Doucet, many of the songs are about women.  Brosseau clearly has a sense of humor, and the lyrics are always fun.  But I would definitely recommend joining him on his musical voyage at a different point.