On his ninth album Ray Lamontagne strives to find his power and steps into it on the long way home.
You could sum up Ray Lamontagne’s latest album, “Long Way Home,” with a single word. Trouble. This is the title song of his debut album in 2004, and twenty years later he’s still trying to equal the popularity of that signature tune. For most of this album, either he or his characters have to deal with a range of emotions much like someone in therapy uses the Feelings Poster, which displays cartoon faces to show the correct way to portray various emotions. His lyrics are written from the perspective of the first person (I, me, mine). My guess is Lamontagne sings about himself more often than not. Whether the stories he tells actually took place doesn’t really matter. They feel authentic.
Not to suggest Lamontagne is vain, but you’d probably think the songs are about him, too, after reading his press materials where he said, “It occurs to me that every song on “Long Way Home” is in one way or another honouring the journey. The languorous days of youth and innocence. The countless battles of adulthood, some won, more often lost. It’s been a long hard road, and I wouldn’t change a minute.”
By unpacking the emotions described in the nine songs (two of them instrumentals) on the album, listeners will be able to experience them through the eyes and heart of the singer. In ‘I Wouldn’t Change a Thing’ Lamontagne crawls out on a limb by singing in a nonbinary fashion, using the first and second person while adding a little pedal steel to a pop soul melody to lend it a country vibe. With perhaps a nod to Cher, he laments, If I had the chance to turn back time, I can tell you this, my friend, I’d do it all over again. Then in the chorus, he reveals why he’s eager for another go, She came on hard and she came on heavy. You ain’t never been the same.
In most of the songs, Lamontagne sticks to his guns by writing from a cis man’s point of view (first person). ‘Yearning’ opens with some slick fingerpicked guitar before dipping its toes into Van Morrison’s pool while lying back to feel the earth turning. Got my baby in my arms, you know I’m feeling alright, watching that evening sun go down. The variant in ‘And They Called Her California’ is a couple bars of harmonica introducing each verse before the West Coast folk strumming kicks in. It’s possible the intent was to imagine Graham Nash hiding out with Joni Mitchell in Laurel Canyon. California, this time, you’re gonna stay with me, for a little while, I wanna see that smile again. Too late, Graham, she’s been smiling at James Taylor.
I’ll give Lamontagne this: It’s a musically eclectic collection of tunes, but apparently he ran out of lyrical ideas on a couple tracks. ‘La De Dum, La De Da’ would be called a non-lexical vocable in polite circles whereas non-PC devotees would say nonsense to repeating the same six syllables over and over. ‘Ramalama Ding Dong’ it is not. The double-tracked acoustic guitars add a nice touch reminiscent of Lindsay Buckingham’s impeccable style on “The Way Things Are.” He’s exhorting people to see things as they really are because, well …. that’s the way things are. The under-2-minute instrumental track (“So, Damned, Blue”) is pleasant enough and would fit nicely on one of William Ackerman’s acoustic guitar recordings or, better yet, synced in the sci-fi movie “Contact” when Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey) tells Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster): “It’s so damn blue (out here).”
‘Lady Fair’ has a jubilant appeal with trumpet and organ fills added to the arrangement, though it may cause you to wonder if the man’s anonymous fair lady could very well be a granddaughter of ‘Madame George.’
The tone of this album is set by the bookend first and last tracks. ‘Step Into Your Power’ begins on a soulful, Motown-ish shuffle with gospel backing vocals from The Secret Sisters. It’s a good bet that Lamontagne has spent his time isolated in the Berkshires reading books of affirmations. If you want it, You can have it, All you gotta do, Is reach out and grab it. Got it. ‘Step into your power’ and the world can be your oyster, cultivating a pearl for you on the ‘Long Way Home.’ Lamontagne effects an air of stoicism in the face of pain and wonderment alike and turns sentimental, singing Winter comes to us all my friend, Just as every childhood has an end. Life is over before you know it and to borrow the motto of House Stark from “Game of Thrones,” where lifespans on the average are about 23 years, “Winter is coming.”
The nine tracks on Lamontagne’s ninth album amount to a shade under 32 minutes. Some might conclude he couldn’t come up with any more musical styles to make his own. But that’s not the case. Albums have just become too darn long. Who has the time? Better to deliver the goods and leave out the so-so material. In lesser hands some of it might seem facile, but the gravelly-voiced veteran Lamontagne brings it on home with aplomb.
