Western ‘movie soundtrack’ concept offering with tremendous songs but hamstrung somewhat by its concept nature.
Alt-country troubadour Nathan Jacques’ sophomore full-length release “Dark Wanderer and the Bounty Heart” is described by its accompanying PR blurb as a western concept album; it is the soundtrack to a fictional movie, in which Jacques plays the character Dark Wanderer, a fictional singing-cowboy movie star in the style of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers; Dark Wanderer is trailed by mysterious figures including his nemesis, the Shapeshifter. This record is a follow on to Jacques’ 2021 debut, “Loud Mind“; another set of stories about a singing cowboy movie star, with the lead characters flowing through from one album to the next.
On “Dark Wanderer and the Bounty Heart” Jacques is joined by his band, which comprises guitarist Christopher Motter, Allen Moreno on steel and baritone guitar, Matt Littell (bass), Edward Cerecedes (drums) and Eric Bell who plays the organ. The LP consists of 12 songs and eight interludes (following the style of a movie soundtrack), all penned by Jacques; we’ll come back to the role of the interludes later.
For this release, Jacques co-produces alongside by Ed Donnelly, who has worked with a wide range of musicians, including Willie Nelson, Crowded House and Matchbox Twenty. A great deal of time, effort and, one supposes, money has been invested in making the sound on the record as authentic to a 1900s Western movie as possible, through employing mid-1900s period-specific techniques and instruments during the recording process; this included vintage ribbon mics and preamps, and tuning the orchestral percussion as it would have been in the era in which the movie is set. The recording was made at EastWest Studios in Hollywood, California, a place where the walls must reek with history, witnessing so many seminal recordings through the years (in the studios’ many guises); including The Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” album, Frank Sinatra’s ‘New York, New York‘, Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You‘ and Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get it On“.
Jacques’ songs here are about characters in the movie and the album opens with the introduction to the character Dark Wanderer; to the sound of a film projector whirring and Jacques singing “I am a wandering, a wandering man, I sing my songs to the desert and they echo all the land” this is ‘Dark Wanderer and the Bounty Heart (Overture / Main Theme)‘ one of the interludes. Next up is ‘A Holler in the Dark‘ which progresses at a gallop; Jacques’ voice is strong, reminiscent of Texan singer-songwriter Jarrod Dickenson. Then we’re back to the whirring projector for another of the interludes, the 47-second-long ‘Into Night‘ before ‘Words of Caution‘ gets us back on track, starting slowly before exploding into life with the band romping through the remainder of the song, with Jacques singing the warning “Careful wanderer, I don’t know much of this world, But I know a dead man when I see one“.
From here, it’s straight into ‘Sactuary Light‘ which was the first single released in advance of the LP; it’s perhaps the strongest song here, being uptempo with a catchy melody; it also has a great twangy guitar solo. Then the mood changes again with ‘Marching Song (Wanderer’s Theme)‘ a 24-second interlude sounding like it’s come straight from a spaghetti western movie, before we’re on the up again with the memorable ‘The King Underground‘.
‘Shapeshifter‘, the second single release, is another highlight, being a straightforward rock song, driven along by some more twangy guitar lines. The video that accompanies this song depicts Jacques and the band performing the musical spot on a fake TV nightly news show, with Jacques doing his best Dwight Yoakam-esque moves and an appearance by the Shapeshifter. ‘Loveless Country‘ starts off slowly, with Jacques singing over B3 organ, before it kicks into gear; it features Tyler Carlson on harmony vocals. ‘The Storm‘ is a moody, atmospheric song, that lives up to its title, while ‘Cactus Rose‘ is another upbeat song with more standout guitar work.
‘All I See‘ finds Jacques wrapping things up; it features the fabulous line “Of all my demons you were the best one“. This is the third single from the LP and the associated video is essentially the final, tragic scene from the movie. You really should checkout the videos for the singles, the links are at the end of this review, as they add useful context to the songs.
The cover art is, well, a work of art. Produced by Sam Hadley, it faithfully mimics a movie poster, including characters from the movie; it’s great stuff.
This is a flawed, but really good album. If you don’t follow that logic, the songs here are tremendous; Jacques writes strong, catchy melodies, the soundscape is effective at giving the listener the feel of desolate landscapes in which the characters in the songs operate and the singing and playing is top notch. It’s just that the interludes get in the way; they tend to kill momentum. Of course, the concept of the album is that of a movie soundtrack, it’s just that many listeners may only listen to the interludes once. You could imagine a listener who is listening to a digital source skipping some, if not all of the interludes after the first listen, but that would be impractical for an analogue source such as vinyl. A future reissue including just with the songs would be ideal, perhaps with the title “Dark Wanderer and the Bounty Heart – Director’s Cut”. As it stands, the rating for the record is 7/10, but it would merit at least 8/10 for the songs alone.
