Black Keys’ man Dan Auerbach has his Easy Eye Sound Studios; here, though, he wanted you to channel something he heard in Early James.
So, inspired by the likes of Lightning Hopkins, for his third record, the usual studio was eschewed in favour of a ramshackle house.
And the old-time power that is in songs like “Steely Knives” comes from the fact that they could have been released at any point in history.
I’ve reviewed several Dan Auerbach-produced albums, and one thing that binds them together is their authenticity.
Here, though, with the astonishingly expressive voice that James has, that’s even more true. The pain of a life seems to burst forth in one raw moment called “Nothing Surprises Me Anymore”.
The instrumentation is sparse, but when it’s used, it is extremely clever, as on “Tin Foil Hat,” where Auerbach, bassist Adrian Marmolejo, drummer Jeffrey Clemens, and percussionist Sam Bacco unleash something totally different.
If that one has a nightmarish quality, then “Go Down Swinging” sounds like a film noir soundtrack playing in their collective heads. The sort of thing Urban Voodoo Machine used to do, it simply unsettles.
And “unsettling” is a pretty decent word for all of it. “Rag Doll” takes us down some jazz-infused back alley, while even the ones that are the most overtly folky, like “Gravy Train,” seem to be cathartic.
It’s typical of the incongruous nature of this that one of the gentlest, calmest tracks here is called “I Could Just Die Right Now,” as if it’s accepted its fate long before the last line concludes, “living is a young man’s game”.
The whole of “Medium Raw” seems to beat with the darkest of hearts. Most of the time it’s below the surface, but “Unspeakable Thing” shines a light on those things that you don’t want to see, not really, and “Beauty Queen” reasons that “it’s never really what it seems,” and maybe that’s all of it?
Even on a record that never fails to surprise, “Dig To China” is a bit of a left turn. Like they’ve found it in the denim jacket of an acid casualty who still hasn’t found his way home from Woodstock, it is quite the trip.
This is rooted, though, in the roots of music, if you will, and ever since Robert Johnson’s little sojourn to the crossroads, music like “Upside Down Umbrella” has existed, and certainly that DNA is here.
There’s just a classic feel about this. A familiarity. Like you’ve heard it before, except it’s as original as can be.
What Early James has cooked up here is proof that those who say that acoustic music can’t be raw are wrong.
Not the most immediate of records; nevertheless, these primal songs almost command you to love them in the end.
Rating 8/10
