A thoughtful and contemplative attempt to wring some optimism from a time when there really isn’t much about.
When the first Trump administration finally exited stage left in 2021, kicking and screaming as it went, songwriter Christopher Hatfield felt compelled to write a record as a way of processing and grieving over all that had gone on in his country in those preceding four years. Horrified at the things he had witnessed, at what humanity and, in particular, the USA under that administration was capable of, he felt that it was only after the event, when time and distance had allowed some measured reflection, that he felt the time was right to express himself.
How ironic now, then, that, in his guise as leader of the band Love Axe, the record is released just as the world grimaces through another term in office. So, in Hatfield’s own words, “This now feels, very sadly, much more relevant to our world than it did when I finished it.”
‘Optimism Paranoia Desperation Abolition’ is the fifth Love Axe album, a band only insofar as it is, and has been since 2015, primarily Hatfield, with contributing guests. Trading on the memories of the likes of Guthrie, Seeger, and Dylan, Hatfield reprises their weapon of protest, an acoustic guitar, three chords and the truth, to rail against social injustice. Through nine songs, Hatfield takes us on a considered, long walk through the aforementioned grieving process, attempting to understand how we got here in the first place and how to make the best of it while we’re all still breathing.
The record plays out in low key fashion: it is a stripped-back affair, a softly strummed nylon-string guitar and carefully placed adornments (clarinet, piano, pedal steel, some bass and drums here and there) lead the way, making room for Hatfield’s baritone to be front and centre. The record considers the trajectory from optimism to paranoia to desperation to abolition without ever really deviating from this musical recipe. If the album is a journey through the stages, the title track goes through them all in a little under 5 minutes. “Maybe someday we’ll do things our way, we’ll put out these flames. Optimism.” Or “There’s no time left for feeling helpless ‘cos each way lies death. Desperation.”
Hatfield reserves his most optimistic and upbeat vocals till the last track. ‘Blue Skies Above’ benefits from the gorgeous harmonies of Lauren Balthrop, and that optimism is reflected in the song’s final lines: “Yeah, I’ve got no direction but up, where I see only a blue sky.” Hatfield can be proud of an album that oozes repressed rage against the crooked and morally bankrupt establishment, but one cannot help but wonder how much of that optimism remains in Hatfield’s world today.
