St. Paul & the Broken Bones reprise the light psychedelia and experimental R&B of 2022’s The Alien Coast with their latest, Angels in Science Fiction. The album is based on a series of letters to his unborn child that the group’s leader, Paul Janeway, was inspired to write upon learning that his wife was pregnant with their daughter, Marigold, perhaps at the instigation of friends or in the grand tradition of icons such as Aristotle, William James, and John Steinbeck. The themes are faith, nature vs nurture, anxiety, and beauty.
The album was recorded at Sam Phillips Recording Studio in Memphis and produced by Matt Ross-Spang, known for his work with Jason Isbell, John Prine, and the Drive-by Truckers. It features Janeway (vocals) along with Jesse Phillips (bass), Browan Lollar (guitar), Kevin Leon (drums), Al Gamble (keyboards), Allen Branstetter (trumpet), Chad Fisher (trombone), and Amari Ansari (saxophone).
Like the soul albums of previous eras, a dozen tracks here all reside in the two-four-minute range. Yet, though the album is unequivocally emotionally rich, with most songs building to vibrant climaxes after mellow beginnings, as a whole it lacks the power, swagger, and singalong aspects of vintage soul records. The album opens with Janeway’s high-pitched Al Green-like vocal for the ballad “Chelsea,” as if he were singing a lullaby to his daughter, backed by subtle simpatico support from the band, which swells and builds in intensity about two minutes in. before moving into a diminuendo as Janeway takes it out. The punchy “City Federal Building,” the latest single follows with its fatherly advice about finding and protecting one’s identity, powered by Leon’s crisp snare and Phillips’ sturdy bass line, it adheres closely to the band’s original soul-based sound. “Magnolia Trees” takes a similar tact to “Chelsea” with Janeway’s voice reaching some impossibly high notes.
“Sea Star” was the first single released and has an accompanying video that you can search out. Its steady beat supports a story of a man on the seashore picking up starfish only to have a passerby inform him that his one-at-a-time attempts would be futile. Responding that he’d be happy saving and making a difference for one is at the heart of Janeway’s theme for his daughter – “Try your best to make a difference, starting with the people that are around you.” The second single, “Lonely Love Song,” appears near the end of the album even though it was the first song Janeway wrote for the project, another with simple lyrics but deeply emotional delivery.
As we listen to “Heat Lightning” and the title track, the program continues with slow-paced tunes, understandable given the subject matter, but this writer yearns for more varied sequencing with at least a few up-tempo tunes. Fortunately, “Wolf in Rabbit Clothes” with its start-stop rhythms answers that call. One of the more interesting tracks is “Oporto-Madrid Blvd, “a hybrid of jazz-fusion, James Brown-like R&B, and psychedelia. “Easter Bunny” and “Marigold” continue the ballad-heavy emphasis of the bulk of the album with terrific vocals from Janeway, but the lingering laid-back sound could, as mentioned, use an infusion of energy to better flesh it out as a whole.
