Cass McCombs doesn’t sit still very often. He’s the kind of troubadour who rides the Greyhound with a few $20 bills in his pocket and little else. He dodges muggers and probes interviewers and anyone else who wants a piece of him. He hears divine voices (“infinity whispers in my ear”) that urge him “onward, Christian songwriter.” But for a guy who spends most of his time on the road reading Gideons and auditioning new bandmates, Dropping The Writ is remarkably consistent. McCombs had an extended stay in London recently, and you have to wonder if he was tossed into a time machine set to 1987 and recorded with 4AD musicians during a week of rain and fog. Unlike, say, the Clientele—a modern band with a direct line to the melancholic, pastoral pop of the ’60s—McCombs sounds like the Shins interpreting a Robyn Hitchcock cover of the Zombies. Spacious arrangements leave plenty of room for layers of vocal harmonies, and unlike many crooners, McCombs is at his most endearing when he stretches his tenor. Opener “Lionkiller,” with its rolling guitar, is itching to be mashed up with Battles’ “Atlas.” It’s one of the only immediate thrills found on this album of subdued and subtle pleasures, where the weightless atmosphere is a deceptive distraction from McCombs’ songwriting strengths. [www.dominorecordco.com]
—Michael Barclay
