This is Mr Lovett’s first album of all-original material since the mid-’90s and one on which he often indulges in bouts of world-weary nostalgia. The result is a mixumgatherum of tunes and musical ideas, revisiting old haunts to little benefit, and overall it fails to add anything fresh to the Lovett canon.
That said, he has a sufficiently magical touch when he blends a variety of genres seamlessly. In the deceptively jaunty ‘Election Day’ he tackles the subject of US racism in a way that few country acts would risk, especially right now. That done, he then turns in ‘Wallisville Road’, an average song about driving down the road with a girl. Wow! ‘You Were Always There’ is subtly jazz-inflected with a vocal reeking of abject desolation.
‘Cute As A Bug’ is tame stuff, while ‘The Truck Song’ is a hymn to, ahem, a truck, complete with appropriately gormless lyrics. ‘I’m Going To The Place’ and ‘I’m Going To Wait’ are run-of the-mill gospel filler. ‘My Baby Don’t Tolerate’ is a solid, sinewy blues that pays its way, but the real winner is ‘In My Own Mind’, a country cousin of ‘The Games People Play’ and a slow heart-aching story of a man seeking some relief from his family duties.
To existing fans My Baby Don’t Tolerate will serve as a useful addition to Lovett’s impressive catalogue, but he’ll have to try harder than this if he’s to make any new friends. Or enemies.