Heartmind is Cass McCombs’ 10th album. Lead single ‘Unproud Warrior’ is a country jam with a slouching tempo, pillowed snare, and dicing high-hat. 

On repeated listens, the almost glib lyrics of ‘Facile’ – “September the second twenty seventeen/ That’s your discharge day etched in your soul/ It’s been nearly two years now gone by so fast” – morph into a jaundiced anti-war song concealing a killer blow. 

The anonymous protagonist is a well-read war veteran, listing SE Hinton, Mary Shelley and Stephen Crane as artists who created masterpieces, when they were of similar age to soldiers who merely take orders. He is not the returning soldier of the movies, rather one who has “always taken lengths to be aware of your own choice.”

Elsewhere, there is the majestic Sparks feel of ‘Music Is Blue’; the galloping, FM radio jaunt of ‘Karaoke’; the Merseybeat birdsong of ‘New Earth’; and the carousel folk and arcade pinball roll of ‘Krakatau’. Oh, and the Van The Man-style, jazz-folk workout on the closing title-track is superb.

Score: 7/10
Listen: ‘Unproud Warrior’

Out now via anti.

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