After his previous release, Sturgill Simpson stated: “This is the last Sturgill record. I always said there would be five, and I wondered if I’d go back on that. But it really has cemented every step of the way how much I don’t want to carry all that weight.” Now Simpson’s name won’t have to do any heavy lifting as he has created a new persona, Johnny Blue Skies, who has released his first album Passage Du Desir, sounding an awful lot like Sturgill Simpson’s classic records.
Simpson’s core is the mixing of outlaw-based country with classic Nashville pop and slightly psychedelic flourishes. Those ingredients are all in play here to varying degrees, and while it seems he will never leave Country behind, the most successful efforts on Passage Du Desir are the least beholden to the genre.
“If The Sun Never Rises Again” is a gorgeous slice of retro soul that uses soft vocals, great grooves, and dynamite guitar work as this “get-down” track flows gorgeously, while “Scooter Blues” is a direct ode to Jimmy Buffet and the beach bum lifestyle. Closer “One For The Road” starts out in fairly straight-ahead country fashion, with dramatic strings from Matt Combes, before a gorgeously expansive finale that owes more to Pink Floyd than Merle Haggard.
Produced by Simpson and David Ferguson, the album sounds glorious as Simpson has always paid extra attention to sonic details, and Passage Du Desir is no exception. Opener “Swamp of Sadness” uses strong accordion from Mike Rojas and Sierra Hull’s mandolin to kick off the album with another siren song from Simpson, while “Who I Am” is a confessional acoustic ditty with twangy acoustic and weepy steel guitars.
The album’s centerpiece, Jupiter’s Faerie, conflates all Simpsons’ musical loves and, in the end, proves to be too much. A torch song, a power ballad, an art piece, the heart of a future Broadway musical, the tune goes big. While it never fully explodes or truly coalesces, it shows why Simpson…err, Johnny Blue Skies, is always worth checking out, as his ideas are grandiose and exciting.
Rather than completely reinventing himself via the new moniker, Sturgill Simpson delivers more of his same idiosyncratic stylings. Passage Du Desir uses a classic Nashville base that allows ‘Johnny Blue Skies’ to springboard to more pop-oriented sounds and slightly tripped-out structures with varying degrees of success.