Album Review: Son Volt – Union (Transmit Sound/Thirty Tigers)

Jay Farrar channels the ghost of Woody Guthrie on this collection of politically-charged songs.

Let’s face it, Americana artists writing songs in reaction to the right-wing politics of Trump’s America is nothing new. There have been heaps of them released over the past few months.

But Son Volt’s Jay Farrar has gone directly to the source, recording much of Union at the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The remainder of the record was tracked at the Mother Jones Museum in Mt Olive, Illinois.

Farrar is no stranger to the work of Guthrie (what self-respecting Americana artist is?) having collaborated with My Morning Jacket’s Jim Jones on the 2012 album New Multitudes where the duo poured over Guthrie’s unused lyrics to create new songs.

But listening to the 13 tracks that comprise Union, one wonders what, if anything, Jay Farrar learned from his time curating Woody Guthrie’s writing.

Where Guthrie was poetic and evocative, Farrar is clunky and awkward. Take the title track, for instance. Here’s the third verse:

A two-party system
The donkey and the elephant
Liberals and conservatives
Each fight for their own survival

It sounds more like a paragraph in a school book than a song.

Then there’s Rebel Girl, a song about a “thoroughbred lady” who “brings courage and pride to the fighting rebel boy”, that comes across as patronizing and condescending.

Farrar’s lyrics only seem to come to life on Devil May Care, the jangly rocker written about the joys of making music.

I should note that musically, Son Volt sound excellent throughout. Despite singing about a “trickle-down world” on The 99, Farrar and the band kick up a storm with some fine Crazy Horse-style guitar.

But overall, Farrar sounds like he’s preaching to the converted and his mono-tonal voice seems to drone on as the album plays itself out.

I’m all for politically-outspoken music, and Lord knows we need it now, more than ever, but I’m not sure that this album is helping the cause.

Marty Duda