M.C. Taylor
, the vocalist and songwriter behind
Hiss Golden Messenger
, was struggling with some heavy emotional baggage when he was making 2019's
Terms of Surrender
, written and recorded as he grieved the death of his father and experienced a deep slide into depression. A little more than six months after the album was released, the rest of the world sunk into the doldrums as a global pandemic and a divisive culture held sway, and it's comforting that
Taylor
is here to commiserate with us all. 2021's
Quietly Blowing It
was written between March and June 2020, when
spent his days in a tiny home studio with his guitar and his thoughts. Without dealing with the specifics of the litany of disasters that dominated that year, the tenor of this album reflects a world that struggles to understand just what's going on and why. The uphill battle of simply getting by informs "Hardlytown," the growing divide between the haves and have nots is at the core of "Mighty Dollar," mortality and survival walk side by side in "Sanctuary," and the struggle to keep hoping without knowing if it will ever pay off is the theme behind "If It Comes in the Morning."
is the work of a man who has far more questions than answers, and he's sadly short on concrete advice at a time when we could all use it. But while the lyrics of these songs confront the realities of a cruel world, the music is there to offer all the solace
knows how to give. The melodies are not always upbeat, but they have the warmth and determined compassion of a hug from an old friend, and the arrangements dress the tunes in sounds that recall the rootsy end of '70s soft rock but with an emotional eloquence that's often very beautiful, even when his characters are chasing a happiness that's out of their grasp. On
,
reminds us he knows how we feel, and that he feels the same way; perhaps that helps only so much, but there's a lot to be said for a friendly voice during a hard time, and that's just what this album delivers. ~ Mark Deming