Following on from The Golden Age of Radio (2002) and Hello Starling (2003), The Animal Years sees Idaho-born singer-songwriter Josh Ritter maturing in confidence, scope and style, as he crafts folk-protest songs in the tradition of forebears like Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Bruce Sprinsteen while simultaneously forging his own individual sound.
In a clever balancing act, Ritter and producer Brian Deck (Iron & Wine’s Our Endless Numbered Days and Modest Mouse’s The Moon and Antarctica) have made The Animal Years sound classic and timeless in a Harvest kind of way, while also injecting, through the use of complex multilayering and subtle electronic sounds, a strong contemporary feel into the instrumental mix of guitar, Hammond organ, piano and snare.
The overall melding of old with new resonates brilliantly with Ritter’s lyrical style, which tends to use an image-drenched, apocalyptic, bordering-on-biblical kind of poetry to express the singer’s concerns about the moral bankruptcy of politics and religion in modern America. (‘Girl In The War’ ­ a metaphorical critique of US aggression in the Middle East – and the extraordinarily ambitious 10-minute long ‘Thin Blue Flame’, are shining examples of this apocalyptic style.) Ritter has a literary background and it shows in his writing, which for The Animal Years drew on the work of great US scribes like Mark Twain, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
Powerful and resonant, The Animal Years’ complex musical tapestry remains deeply engaging throughout.