Bill Callahan

Woke on a Whaleheart

(Drag City)

Record Review by Adam McKibbin

In his nearly two decades as the driving force behind indie-folk cult favorites Smog, Bill Callahan became renowned for his droll lyrical sensibilities and a kind of minimal melancholy. On Woke on a Whaleheart, he sheds the Smog moniker and puts a spring in his step, aided by key collaborator/arranger Neil Michael Hagerty and gospel-belting backup singer Deani Pugh-Flemmings.

Though this is hardly the first time that Callahan has pursued full-blooded band material, Whaleheart, as a whole, feels somewhat removed from the Smog catalog—not necessarily for better or worse. While they lack the stark emotional revelation of his best work, the largely warm and up-tempo new songs embed themselves more quickly into the consciousness.

Some prominent threads do connect Callahan's work here to previous incarnations, however—his fractured baritone and unique poetic insight, which belong to the league of early Leonard Cohen and Lambchop's Kurt Wagner. For example, "From the Rivers to the Ocean" endorses experience over observation ("I could tell you about the river, or... we could just get in"), and sets the tone for an album that returns to romance even as it explores themes of faith and mortality.