Margo Price Goes Further Down The Trippy Trail With ‘Strays II’ (ALBUM REVIEW)

In January of this year, 2023, Margo Price issued the highly acclaimed and much talked about Strays, partially written during a formative six-day psilocybin trip that she and her husband Jeremy Ivey took in the summer of 2022. They are likely not the first to do this but maybe the first to publicly admit so.  Not every song relates to the trip, and if you’re expecting a wildly psychedelic album, you’ll be disappointed. These nine new songs divide equally into three acts, each with its own story of love, grief, and acceptance. All nineteen tracks are combined into a digital release on October 13^th with a double vinyl releases to follow on November 10^th. 

On Act 1: Topanga Canyon Strays producer Jonathan Wilson joins Price with new collaborator Buck Meek of Big Thief and multi-instrumentalist Ny Oh. Act II: Mind Travel features Mike Campbell on one track and Act III: Burn Whatever’s Left also features Wilson on one track. Act 1: Topanga Canyon opens with “Strays,” the story of how Price and husband Ivey met and fell in love in Nashville two decades ago with Price writing lyrics and Ivey the music, the theme of which is that once unconventional or wild outliers, it’s important to stay true to that persona. The tune rocks hard in a let-the-wind-blow-back-your-hair way with guitars and piano pounding out power chords to the unrelenting swirls of the B3. Price absolutely wails on the final chorus “We were strays.”

“Closer I Get,” which features Oh, was co-written with Ivey and one that owes to the psychedelic trip. The sonics are less dense but the lyric is heavy – “Being alive costs a lot of money but so does dying.” The organ, Price’s ascending vocal, and the soaring lead guitar in the final sequence brings it into hazy territory. That haze clears out for “Malibu,” written with Mike Campbell and featuring both Meek and Wilson. The song was written following Price and Ivey fleeing a wildfire, racing through the canyon to retrieve Price’s guitar from their Airbnb. Price is channeling the Bobbie Gentry kind of narrative here, and apparently Campbell helped her with the ending that she was struggling with, adding the ‘California” yodel and the bridge. The tune has a cohesive country feel and stays this side of psychedelia.

Act II: Mind Travel is mostly dark and perhaps most representative of the psilocybin effects. Analogies, metaphors and symbolism are rampant, albeit often subtle. The lyrics of “Black Wolf Blues” begin with Price reflecting on her grandparents whose love for each other endured despite the loss of their farm. She’s singing sweetly in a nostalgic way but the gurgling organ and irregular, chiming percussion is forming a mysterious, dark background that Price is barely whispering over. The black wolf is that dark, inexplicable, unable to shake fear that hands over us like a cloud. “Mind Travel” is their prototypical trip song, (‘beat poetry on drugs with a backbeat’) filled with bouncy rhythms that belie thoughts of growing comfortable with death and realizing soon that the present is better than being stuck in some past situations. It’s almost too much to digest in a mere four minutes. “Unoriginal Sin” is a dark rocker co-written with Mike Campbell that structurally hangs together better than most of the Price/Ivey tunes, punctuated with Campbell’s Heartbreaker-like guitar lines. Price sings it but somehow it could just easily be the late Tom Petty. 

Every trip, especially a six-day one like they took, has a distinct come down period. That’s the essence of Act III: Burn Whatever’s Left.  The tone of “Homesick,” with guest Wilson, is reflective, ruminative, and at times depressing, wrapped in ethereal, often repetitive soundscapes. “Where Did We Go” is a simple, mid-tempo rocker that’s blissful but far from joyous with Price singing in a gentler voice as opposed to her confident, wailing approach. The title track begins with a dominant, dissonant chord that reappears at several intervals. Price tries to recount the journey, citing some regrets but leaving relatively content in the notion that it’s purposeless to dwell on what can’t be changed. Maybe it’s best to extinguish those memories.