Lookout Sea paradoxically Silver Jews' most complex and most accessible work to date. Better yet, it improves with each listen, as more and more nuances and links are revealed.
It is no small feat to write melodies as memorable as Berman's exceedingly quotable lyrics, but on each song here, he does. Lookout Mountain is an outstanding work of art.
Everyone involved - Berman, his wife Cassie on bass, various Lambchop alumni - evidently delights in each song's peculiarities, and their pleasure can't help but suffuse the listener, too.
If alt-country were truly alternative, it might sound more like Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, especially on 'What Is Not But Could Be If,' where Silver Jews leader David Berman's booming vocals run as deep as anything this side of Johnny Cash or Leonard Cohen in their prime.
While his deadpanned wit is ever the disarming device on the band’s sixth album, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, it’s balanced with a decidedly sober appraisal of life’s monumental hardships and meager redemptions.
As a vehicle for Berman’s words, just as much as a follow-up to his 1999 poetry collection "Actual Air" would be, Lookout Mountain is a volume to be consumed in one’s own time, filed on the shelf, and eventually taught in seminars as an example of form and poise.
Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea reveals more poetic, as well as playful, layers with each listen -- and above all, underscores what an inviting songwriter Berman is, whether he's taking a darker or lighter approach.
Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea is the logical next chapter in this manuscript which has had many of us hooked since the opening lines.
Lookout doesn’t have the feel of a major step forward for the Silver Jews: sonically, it falls pretty comfortably between Bright Flight and Tanglewood and doesn’t have the sort of big events that marked those two records.
He hasn't lost the sardonic smarts, but there's a sense of lightness—the playful, country-ish rock is more playful and country-ish—that by its nature removes some of the gravity and graveness of his songs.
I prefer to think of Lookout Mountain as an album of pretty-good songs from a guy who has written some unbelievably great ones, and will, more than likely, write some more of that quality down the road.
On an album so brief, these less effective songs take up an awful lot of space, making for a record that is fun throughout, but still awfully uneven. Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea is hit and miss, but its missteps come as a result of admirable risks.
1 | What Is Not But Could Be If 3:08 | 77 |
2 | Aloysius, Bluegrass Drummer 1:54 | 75 |
3 | Suffering Jukebox 4:21 | 89 |
4 | My Pillow Is the Threshold 3:52 | 82 |
5 | Strange Victory, Strange Defeat 2:44 | 77 |
6 | Open Field 2:39 | 68 |
7 | San Francisco B.C. 6:15 | 76 |
8 | Candy Jail 2:30 | 87 |
9 | Party Barge 2:55 | 68 |
10 | We Could Be Looking for the Same Thing 3:35 | 79 |