Album Review: The Weatherman by Gregory Alan Isakov

I usually fall asleep quickly, rarely lingering in my passage to sleep. Sometimes, I slowly drift and enter a realm between dreams and waking. In that state, I follow the mundane activities of people I’ve never met. They are tying shoes, washing dishes, buying groceries, mowing the lawn, sipping coffee. I rarely see them do anything noteworthy. Instead, I see the nuances of their character revealed in ordinary activities. When I wake from this state, I recount a strong identification with these people, but I remember no details. In surreal surveillance, I peer into the heart of their struggles, while the specifics wash away, leaving only a glowing recognition of their unique nature.

On The Weatherman, Gregory Alan Isakov consistently evokes a similar perspective. Each song is populated with characters that cling to the boundary between daily struggles and the promise of magic and myth that permeates every moment as they grapple with love and loss. They are just like us, but through the lense of Isakov’s songs, we see the passing beauty in the snapshots of their lives.

Throughout his career, this is what he has done best. Revealing the beauty in small acts is a classic trick of artists and authors, and one that Isakov nails every time. In that regard, this album is just business as usual. Look a little closer, and you’ll see an artist that has journeyed deeper into his craft.

While his previous efforts were by no means exercises in extravagance, we find him slicing much closer to the bone on this album. If he ever allowed for any fat or excess in his songs, it has been trimmed away. Only essence remains. Each song is a story or scene, and there is no gloss to hide the truth behind. This is as honest as songwriting gets, without sacrificing sonic depth, a familiar gambit in the singer-songwriter realm.

An album ago, on This Empty Northern Hemisphere, songs exist in a Technicolor world where arrangements spill outward from the spare framework of guitar and voice, eventually sweeping the listener away in a wave of emotion. This time around, that same expansive vision has been turned inward. All the familiar players, banjos, guitars, strings, saws, and background choirs ripped straight from 1940’s AM radio are here, but rather than transport you out into the world, the pieces of each song grow down and in, sucking the listener in to the yearning and heartbreak of each protagonist, delicate as a fading picture. Across and above it all, is the unmistakable croon of Isakov, who deserves a place among the greatest voices in music.

This record could have come out 30 years ago. It could be released in 10 years. It’s not often that a record strikes me as timeless on first listen. This one does, and it’s no mistake. The album was entirely recorded to analog tape, giving it a sound alien to modern ears. There is a warmth and dynamic range here that is a defense against the relentless binary march of the “superiority” of digital media and a reminder that we all have ability to find beauty in the fleeting moments that add up to create the sum total of our lives. I hope I live a life composed entirely of moments as beautiful as these songs. To that I aspire, at least.

This is an album for open places, dust colored sunsets, a heart wandering free in a world of unbearable emotion. It is for the lonely, the newly single, the habitually wayward, the unabashed romantic. It is for anyone on a journey, moving away from or toward the next unforgettable faded photograph of their lives.

http://gregoryalanisakov.com