Lou Barlow's struggled mightily this millennium, the once-revered
songsmith mired in mediocre makeovers of Sebadoh and the Folk Implosion,
bringing back both bands, after their initial deaths, to try and
ride a few more miles on a pair of dead horses. With Bakesale recently
clocking up its 10-year-anniversary — a high-school reunion that made
many folks (like, oh, y'know, me) feel mighty old — it's been a long,
long, long time since Barlow was on song. The most charming,
moving, and probably best disc in this whole Sebadoh/Sentridoh/Folk
Implosion/etc. canon (the live album, Lou Barlow Plays Waterfront,
recorded in Sydney and issued in friends-and-family amounts by Spunk
records way back in said day) is now coming up on its own nine-year
anniversary. The fact that an impromptu live disc is Barlow's magnum
opus says a lot about both songsmith and music-biz, the sincere
simplicity that was his best quality getting lost amidst the
sales-cognizant cynicism of the Folk Implosion and The Sebadoh. Now,
with Emoh, the 38-year-old artist has come far enough to have come
artistic full-circle. With his days as major-label unit-shifter
vanished from pop-culture's goldfish memory, his first official solo
album is on hand to remind us of what once made Barlow great. Centered
on Lonesome Lou on an acoustic guitar, the disc leaves the
songsmith's tunes, from the openly sentimental to the romantic,
ragged, and smart-ass, largely unadorned, with the various bits of
added instrumentage — strings, electric guitar, keys, rare drums — all
gently gathered around that basic singer/songwriter backbone. And, as
far as songs go, Barlow hasn't been this good in years. "Mary," in
particular, is a hilarious pop song set to a rather natty melody, the
tongue-in-cheek tale being told by a narrator who, after getting up to
some on-the-side action with Mary, watches her turn around and tell the
world it was an "immaculate conception." Barlow, however, deftly steers
such comedy away from novelty-song territory with this simple,
sweethearted refrain: "Mary, Mary, under veil of stars/ You changed the
world, but you broke my heart." Speaking of such, it's no surprise
that, across the album, it's the sad songs that end up saying so much.
And the quartet of "Puzzle," "Imagined Life," "Monkey Begun," and
"Legendary" all touch on touching profundity, Barlow wearing his sadsack
sentiments and pithy observations on his sleeve; gently singing angsty
outpourings to, and tales of domesticity fro, the emo(h) of his title
really spelling Home in reverse, the meaning meaningful no matter which
direction you read it.
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