Lowlights, Further/Free

review by dave heaton

Further/Free opens in a Gothic mood, with fog rolling in and dawn giving way to day, an unsettling feeling in the air. The atmosphere of the opening instrumental glides into a country-rock song, "Under the Sun", that puts in that same climate a melody and a story, one of death, family, and the West. A tale of a child bride and an outlaw always on the move. With organ, banjo, sort of menacing drums and Dameon Lee's voice, filled with grit and years, it gets fuller in sound, throwing in Mexicali brass, as the tone gets more ominous. The central line of the song is "what have you done?"

The rest of the album shares a focus on atmosphere and on telling tales. Some literally could be old folk tales. "Orphan in the Mines", for example, a vengeance tale where the narrator loses his sweetheart to "the spirit of the valley and the whiskey, rum and rye". Or "Willow Garden", about a poisoned lover.

Other songs keep those solitary figures, the loneliness, the rambling, the seekers, and put it all in modern settings, like "California Home", a song seeking reconciliation with a lover. "Don't waste your time / on a stupid job and a small apartment / it all fades away", Lee sings. Part of what makes Further/Free so memorable is the way it entwines the old and new worlds, musically and in its storytelling. These are big themes that will last forever: people coming together, people leaving each other, people staying a live.

The album has a fair share of heartbreak songs, or breakup songs, if you will. It's more of a focus as the album proceeds. That opening question, "what have you done?", turned towards a lover and occasionally towards the self, is a key one. There are some truly gorgeous, sad goodbye songs. One of my favorites is an instrumental, "It's Over Now". That title says it all, and the song captures the feeling perfectly.

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