James McMurtry

Just Us Kids

Lightning Rod Records

By John Morthland

Sure, James McMurtry has always been a word man; that's hardly surprising, given his pedigree. And there's nothing on his newest album which changes that. The richly-detailed "Ruby and Carlos" is just one song in which he uses both fleeting imagery and strict narrative to heartbreakingly describe the falling-apart of a relationship over a considerable amount of time. "Fire Line Road" draws an appropriately harrowing picture of incest and addiction. But there's also plenty more here to confirm that McMurtry's become a whole lot more than just a word man, and that nearly twenty years into his career he's probably still just hitting his stride.

For starters, he and regular sidemen Ronnie Johnson (bass) and Daren Hess (drums) are rocking harder and more confidently than ever. They're sure enough of themselves to include an instrumental ("Brief Intermission") and to hold their own with first-rate sidemen like keyboardist Ian McLagan and guitarists Jon Dee Graham and C.C. Adcock (his burning, biting solo may be the highlight of "Bayou Tortous," but the interplay between him and McMurtry would have been impossible not very long ago because James couldn't have handled it). The trio also shows rhythmic flair and a respect for the groove uncommon among bands fronted by singer-songwriters. A track like "God Bless America" (not the "God Bless America" you're thinking of...) may have angry political lyrics, but the very palpable sense of menace is created just as much by the pile-driving rhythm section, including James's guitar and Pat McDonald's harmonica.

He's also getting more out of that mumbly, nasal twang of his--it's almost like a plains version of Lou Reed's voice--than ever before. Where he once seemed an almost indifferent singer, as if the words could carry the song alone, he now phrases so that just the slightest deviation from his normal tone--the way the daft narrator of the apocalyptic "Hurricane Party" exclaims "My God" about his former love, for example--injects an entire world of experiences and feelings into the matter at hand. He adapts his voice more effectively to speak for his different characters, and his higher-pitched voice on "Ruins of the Realm" adds to the sense of hysteria. Finally, he has the good sense to produce Just Us Kids like the band record it so clearly is, rather than as a troubadour's album. His voice, while still mixed out front enough that you can discern most of the lyrics pretty easily, is treated like an element in the overall sound rather than as the main event. He thus gives himself the best of both worlds, and then reinforces it with a kinetic, live sound that's a welcome relief from the usual troubadour's flatness and sterility.

All this and he's also continuing in the relatively new political tradition of "We Can't Make It Here" (from his last album, Childish Things) with the likes of "Cheney's Toy," which if anything is even more righteously and scabrously pissed-off. And not only does the taunt seem to grow angrier with each listen, but somehow it also manages to come off like a simple statement of fact. It's not easy to be that hostile while appearing to be that matter-of-fact, but James McMurtry pulls it off as convincingly as he does the bitterly mixed-up guy who's thinking against his own interests in "Freeway View," the aging nowhere-men of the title song, or the tremendously sadder but wiser--but still just plain drained by the seeming inevitability of it all--loser in love of "You'd a Thought." Not a handful of other artists out there today can approach James McMurtry's still-growing ability to say so much so musically.