There is a tendency to regard Bill Callahan, the morose Kentucky songwriter who trades as Smog, as a sort of bargain-basement Will Oldham, a rural malingerer perched perpetually on the brink of an emotional fault-line.
Certainly the casual listener may find Callahan a chore. His voice, a cracked croon somewhere between a caterwaul and a whisper, seems designed for the transmission of nothing but guttural ennui. Lyrically, he embraces the murk in his soul, probing old wounds and sutures as though agony were his only release.
For all its starkness though, Callahan’s oeuvre is tinged with a cautious beauty. Beneath the artist’s pained snarl – he’s one of those live performers who seems in constant distress – one begins to detect the hint of a rueful grin.
For his 12th record, Callahan retreats from the mannered melancholia of his recent albums. Here, the ominous tranquility of nature is Callahan’s obsession. Where most see a tranquil lake, Callahan senses the sinister undertow.
The lonely grandeur of the wild is a recurring trope of A River Ain’t Too Much To Love. Opener ‘Palimpsest’ meanders in the manner of a dried riverbed; on ‘The Well’ Callahan sings to the pine trees as if they are the only friends he has left. A reluctant collaborator, he sounds constantly alarmed by drummer Jim White, whose slow licks rise and fall like the portents of a storm.
Searing, mysterious and unflinchingly morose, A River Ain’t... has the obtuse quality of an allegory. The message could be a chillingly straightforward one. Don’t stray into the woods kids – you might stumble upon Bill Callahan, hugging a twisted tree, serenading the darkness.