Leslie Mendelson’s If You Can’t Say Anything Nice …is a worthy successor to 2017’s Love and Murder, one of the best records of that year (along another on which she participated, Steve Kimock’s Satellite City). But in addition to a comparably open, confessional tenor in the material on both efforts, here there’s also an understated topical thread weaving in and out of the songs, an approach that follows directly from last year’s collaboration with Jackson Browne: “A Human Touch” keynotes the film 5B, a documentary profiling the doctors and nurses who helped victims of AIDS in the early days of that epidemic.
As eerily relevant to these crisis-ridden times, as is this third full-length album of Mendelson’s,(following three singles and an EP besides the aforementioned full-length efforts), it resounds as a similarly prescient piece of work. She admits to taking her cue for the efficient production and musicianship from John Lennon’s first solo album, but the first single here, “Medication,” is an arch evocation of that record’s “Isolation,” its somewhat tongue-in-cheek tone (like that of the album title itself) far removed from the Beatle’s simplistic thinking on his record. Focused performances such as this opener, “Lay It All On Me,” match the rigorous intellect within the original compositions, virtues displayed in clear relief via the spare arrangements and terse musicianship.
Along those same lines, the rhythm section of bassist Lorenzo Wolff (also the engineer here) and drummer Zach Jones indelibly imprint the sentiments of the aforementioned opening cut as well as “I Need Something to Care About.” Likewise decorating this latter number are melodic guitar flourishes from Leslie’s songwriting partner (and co-producer with Wolff), Steve McEwan, as well as Mendelson herself on piano. And there’s a precision too in the acoustic guitar for “The Hardest Part,” where airy harmonica she plays suggests a healthy emotional distance. These psychologically complex compositions resonate deeply because they are rendered so directly and to the point.
There’s a truism about exceptional musicians elevating the performances of their peers around them and that’s how Leslie Mendelson’s presence functions as the focal point of this record. Each participant colors the vivid mix(es) of thoughts and feelings, but none are more artful than the woman herself: hear, for instance, how she deftly sings and plays on the deceptively offhanded, raucous title tune or the ghostly “Would You Give Up Your Gun?.” And as deceptively vulnerable is her voice on “Flesh And Bone,” the heavy echo applied to it becomes a direct corollary to the staunch resolve she exhibits, a laudable attribute just as fully in evidence within the deliberate gait of the instrumental ensemble as it quietly elicits an anthemic quality somewhat camouflaged on “All Come Together.”
The integrity of the musicianship throughout If You Can’t Say Anything Nice compels reading the words to the songs on the enclosed lyric sheet. And they’re worth pondering further as each successive cut concludes, all the more so as just a cursory glance may invariably give way to noticing the red-tinted photo there (reappearing from the front cover): the blurry image then becomes a visual corollary to “Speed of Light,” a track that might not garner much attention if not for its penultimate position. Yet, in combination along with its stark audio, this number’s placement ends up sounding like the flash-point for a cumulative impact arising from the prior eight cuts.
Just as dramatically, by directly preceding an emphatic gesture of closure titled “My Dark Peace,” this next-to-last recording also leavens the inherent drama pervading this LP The warmth of Leslie’s vocal there elevates her work above facile singer/songwriter comparisons, but more importantly, the passionate undercurrent in her vocal supplies punctuation for the personal statement of purpose that is If You Can’t Say Anything Nice. As 2020 rolls on in decidedly surreal fashion, other artists in the pop/rock realm will be hard-pressed to match, much less surpass this record for its depth, durability and unwavering devotion to craft.