[rating=9.00]
Using his trademark acoustic guitar as his canvas, Texas singer-songwriter James McMurtry dabs banjo, mandolin, slide guitar, organ and harmonies throughout the tracks making his ninth studio release, Complicated Game, perhaps his best. The album is the perfect mix of stark, dark ballads, toe-tapping ditties and magical musical tours. Lyrically McMurtry’s words beautify the mundane with his ever-present satirical viewpoint; the first track “Copper Canteen” opens with “Honey, don’t you be yelling at me while I’m cleaning my gun.” The song is classic McMurtry; a story of life’s seemingly endless struggle told over picked guitar and banjo parts.
The minimalist “You Got to Me” acoustic guitar, piano and two-part harmony reminisces lost love, “You got to me, brought all this empty down on top of me.”
New Orleans producer C.C. Adcock’s influence seems most evident on the more complicated arrangements; “She Loves Me” is a fifties doo-wop number done with Adcock’s swamp pop signature. “Deaver’s Crossing” is reminiscent of an Irish jig with the mandolin over a heavy bass line providing the sonic accent. “South Dakota” speaks of hard times and hard choices, “There ain’t much between the poles in South Dakota/Barbed wire won’t stop the wind/I won’t get nothing here but broke and older/ I mine as well re-up again,” musically the slide guitar courtesy of Derek Trucks builds the song into a crescendo of drums and electric guitar.
The musical bits and pieces of banjos, bass, drums, organ and three-part harmony all come together in the deep groove of “Carlisle’s Haul”, whose complex musical arrangement is seven sweet minutes of ear candy. One minute in you’ll stop what you’re doing, and three minutes in the song will have your undivided attention, but by six minutes in you can’t wait to hear it again.
“She Loves Me” and “Forgotten Coast” are sing-along numbers with choruses as close to commercial as McMurtry gets. The material is mostly new but the double time blues of the first single; “How’m I Gonna Find You Now” has appeared in recent live setlists. The album concludes with the dirge like “Cutter” whose subject matter is particularly dark even by McMurtry standards, “I cut myself sharp and deep/It’s the only thing that let’s me sleep/Takes the pain from off my face/And puts it in one tiny space.”
Complicated Game is a throwback album rather than a vehicle to promote a couple of singles. In fact, there arguably isn’t a traditional “single” on the release. Complicated Game is a complete work of art best enjoyed in its entirety from start to finish.
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