Jay Bennett – The Beloved Enemy
Jay Bennett seems to be reliving the musical journey he undertook with Wilco; over three albums, this gifted artist has systematically deconstructed the expertly rendered neoclassic pop/rock that has been his strong suit. His latest, The Beloved Enemy, finds Bennett drawing outside the lines with broken crayons.
The opening “Fifty Cent Words” is seven-and-a-half minutes of strangulated ennui, as Bennett takes what might’ve been a reasonably tuneful country lament and lays it to ruin, his zombie vocal surrounded by drunken barroom piano, woozy pedal steel, seemingly random drum
hits and ambient room sound, all of it connoting disconnection and torment. Creeping along in its wake like a funeral procession are “Genevera” (imagine Gene Clark on a bad trip), “My Little Valentine” (croaked with lotsa Waitsian mucus) and the unbearable “Audrey”, wherein Bennett strums idly and mumbles the words as if he were trying to figure it all out — which I suppose is the point.
There’s a respite from the unremitting gloom when Michelle Anthony joins in to duet on the (relatively) lilting co-write “If I Forget To Land”. Anthony’s presence must’ve temporarily shaken Bennett out of his doldrums, because this one sounds like the crisp recordings he’s known for, right down to the cool Leslie guitar licks. Then it’s back to the solemn strumming and open-wound vocals.
“The record sort of feels like it’s falling apart,” Bennett says in the accompanying press release. He nailed it. The Beloved Enemy is the second volume of a projected trilogy; here’s hoping the next one finds him in better spirits.