[rating=3.50]
Bill Callahan gave listeners a glimpse of his new album earlier this year when he released the single “Diamond Dancer” with its penetrating violin and R&B bass line. But this teaser barely scratched the surface of Woke on a Whaleheart, Callahan’s first since stepping from behind the moniker Smog. Despite the name change, his dusty baritone still prevails as he riffs left-of-center stories above simple, repetitive grooves, from the call-and-response gospel of “The Wheel” to the metaphor tempered “Sycamore.” The name is different but Callahan hasn’t stepped away from his work as Smog; with Woke on a Whaleheart, he simply tapes his real name to the brilliant eccentricities – the characters, their lives and their problems – he has been championing for years.
