Canadian singer-songwriter Nick Nace, who has been based in Nashville, in recent years, returns with his fourth solo album, The Harder Stuff, his follow-up to 2019’s Wrestling with the Mystery, which we covered on these pages. This recent batch of songs were all recorded during the pandemic and although history may label this as Nace’s “pandemic record,” only one of the ten songs directly addresses the bleak emotions surrounding that time. He, like most of us, became very introspective during that period. He had just turned 40 and was grappling with the issues of adulthood, trying to assess his identity, musical and otherwise. So, the album is about relationships and what it means to be human on a daily basis. Some of it reminisces but most of it is eminently relatable.
Like the best of songwriters, his are story songs. The album was produced by Steven Cooper, who also played guitar and it was mixed by Nace’s brother, Justin. The core band is Jon Latham (guitar), Todd Bolden (bass), Erin Nelson (drums), Megan Palmer (fiddle), John Henry Trinko (keys and accordion), Owen Beverly (organ), and John Calvin Abney (accordion and bell).
The opener, “Figure 8’s” marks a first for Nace, writing from the female perspective in a tune about a single mother, struggling to get by. Her fond wish is to buy a pair of roller skates to escape her dreary, daily routines. One can’t help but think of Joni Mitchell’s “The River,” coincidentally a perfect song for the pandemic and the similar thought – “wish I had a river I could skate away on.” In the choruses, Nace makes references to Merle Haggard’s classic, “Are the Good Times Really Over for Good” with his line – “& the good times they ain’t gone for good.” “There’s No Music in Music City” is the rather obvious pandemic tune, painting a desolate picture of the once bustling honky-tonks on Lower Broadway with stark imagery such as this verse – “The jukebox has lost its smile a broken heart I reckon/The cowboy boots are crying there ain’t been no two stepping/ The pearl snap shirts are sickly the belt buckles are blue/ The pedal steels are lonesome without their lonesome tunes.”
“Little Kid” is the epitome of reminiscence as Nace reflects on his elementary school days. Try this exercise. It’s rather surprising what memories remain, in his case “velcro my shoes” stands out, a line he further pays off by ending a verse with “still couldn’t tie up my shoes.” The Tex-Mex accordion introduces “The Rio Grande on Christmas Eve.” Inspired by a New York Times article about a man who left Honduras for the United States and ended up on the border river when so many were celebrating the holiday. Nace injects so much realness into his character sketch, making impossible not to feel some empathy. Nace builds immense drama in is story song, “The Piece That Fits,” about a down and out woman, once entrapped in a religious cult, looking for another side of life, meeting a fugitive who has temporarily outrun the law, only to be caught in the last verse, “If anyone asks who’s in my photographs/ I always reply without fail/”She’s sweet she’s kind and she’s on the outside/ Waiting for me to get out of this jail.”
“Someday Is Too Far Away” is about yearning for the love that just never seems to happen while “All the Love That You Need” chronicles a relationship where the two share tender moments amidst the struggles, somewhat reluctantly reaching acceptance and the reality that togetherness is the most important. Weeping pedal steel brings in the title track, making that expected analogy to the typical country drinking song in a different way. It’s about how the news, the daily grind, and relationships can all go downhill but the whiskey never goes bad. It’s there for comfort but it takes a lot more to take on life’s “harder stuff, “which he directly addresses in the younger couple trying to get by, shutting out the outside world, perseverance expressed as “hanging by the skin of our teeth.” He closes with “Last Call,” about a desolate character just hanging in until the end, obsessed with the barmaid as he recalls his ex. His whispered vocal and the moaning pedal steel are the embodiment of loneliness.
As we said last time, these tunes may be a shade darker, but his stories are intriguing and relatable in his distinctly deep, resonant voice. Like the best singer-songwriters, he is a keen observer of the fine details and creates vivid character sketches with the brevity of his well-chosen words.
