If you’ve ever wondered what Nick Cave fronting Morphine might sound like (and really, who hasn’t?) chances are it would be a lot like Whitney Walker’s latest, A Dog Staring Into a Mirror on the Floor. And from the album title alone you know this is not standard fare pop music.
The New England-based singer traffics in smart gothic noir folk/rock, a genre few outside of Cave and Tom Waits are capable of making well. Add Walker to the list now. Across 11 tracks, with the help of Morphine’s Dana Colley on saxophone and clarinet, he creates a brilliantly odd, but gratifying record.
The album opener, “Amatle,” is a bit of an anomaly with the slow, steady acoustic strumming, making it more of an outlier for what lies ahead. It’s still a great song that grows more appreciation with each listen. But, “Love Keeps No Record,” is more indictive of the rest of the album. Colley’s baritone sax perfectly adds to the melancholy.
And that album title is more than just a quirky visual as Walker explained recently. The songs are about love and death – extreme emotions through the “skewed lens of someone with manic depressive viewpoints, plus the addiction” and the album title ties it all together. “Apparently if that happens, a dog will go insane because they see themselves infinitely through the mirror. Their brains can’t handle that. So, I guess the mirror to me would be drugs and alcohol, my mom dying, my dog dying and growing up in a broken home. All that stuff leading to intense mental health issues.”
The track “Single Job Wide,” clocking in at just a minute-and-a-half, with its funk drumming intro and almost joyous organ backing the snarled vocals almost bely the reality that this song was written the morning before Walker’s suicide attempt (an adverse reaction to medication he was taking). Elsewhere, “Heather from Here,” draws influences from The Pixies and is easily one of the album’s stand out tracks. “Freedom and Money,” with its strong ‘70s vibe, is the only song that doesn’t seem to fit naturally with the rest of the songs here. Written about great personal upheavals and several triumphs, A Dog Staring Into a Mirror on the Floor is anchored by heavy material, but it’s deftly handled by Walker’s frank and wry lyrics and band that feels at ease slipping in and out of genres. His vocals are severe, but also surprisingly comforting.
