Simon Joyner
The Lousy Dance
[Truckstop/Atavistic]
Rating: 7.8
Simon Joyner is that rarest of things in the world of modern popular music.
He's a singer, songwriter, poet and artist. Oh, and he's also a damned fine
Leonard Cohen impersonator.
Okay, that last part's not true, and it's probably a bit unfair, too-- Simon
Joyner is no one's clone. (I just wanted to get my crass, hackneyed comparisons
out of the way as early as possible before I started in with my crass, hackneyed
flattery.) However, if Joyner is not Leonard Cohen's clone, he's at least Cohen's
musical descendant.
Joyner carries high the torch that songwriters such as Cohen, Nick Drake and all
the other pasty- faced, sad little boys have lit with their own moody, gothic
songwriting. And, if what I've heard on Joyner's latest release, the subtle,
stylish ode to depression known as The Lousy Dance, holds out for another
album or two, Joyner may have some heat of his own to add to that sad, slow-
flickering flame.
When taken from beginning to end, The Lousy Dance comes across more like
a novel, an opera or some other grand- scale piece of art than just another pop
record. Pulling in an orchestra of instruments-- everything from the electric
guitar to the trombone to the steel guitar to the flugelhorn (which, up until this
album, I never really thought existed... it's always been the Bigfoot of musical
instruments for me)-- the very musical scope of the album is grand. As we pass
through these eight lengthy tracks, Joyner crafts story after story that carries
the listener through bad relationships, sad lives, lonely lovers and dark, rainy
street corners.
With lyrics that could hold their own against some great musical poets, Joyner
picks apart his subjects with a verbal cleverness and eye for detail that has been
lacking in recent generations of music. In his lines, he captures emotions like
other people catch butterflies. Then, he spreads their wings, looks at their
colors to determine what species they are, and lets them go.
Laying a solid yet emotionally- charged soundtrack to these stories, Joyner's
music stays consistent in both sound and quality from track to track. It's a
country- tingled, bluesy groove that's too slow to be rock and too complex to
be country or blues. Mix that with orchestral flourishes, the occasional squeal
of a horn section, a lick from an acoustic guitar, and that tried- and- true sad
song instrument, the piano, and you get the idea. Luckily, Joyner's skilled
enough with arrangements to blend all these sounds together seamlessly, creating
one immaculately produced, immaculately beautiful album.
Granted, this is a much more personal and soulful sound than is probably
fashionable right now. But The Lousy Dance is a perfect example of an
album that was written for the songwriter than for the faceless, anonymous
listening public. However, the merit of this introspective and lonesome album
is that Joyner is able to express his fears and heartaches so eloquently that the
personal becomes the public. His issues start to matter, as they reflect our own
issues, with the music and lyrics morphing into some strange universal language
that we can all understand.
In your best friend, this level of melodrama would be irritating as hell, but on
an album as masterful as The Lousy Dance, this tension is brilliant,
seducing the listener, playing up to their sympathies and fears, and dragging
them into the dark, cold lives of these songs. In a nutshell, Simon Joyner is a
true man of talent who has managed to make an album that feels genuinely haunted.
But, shameless praise aside, if you're a technical perfectionist, there are a few
instances on The Lousy Dance-- not many, but a few-- that will have you
driving pencils into your ears as Joyner's voice warbles like a see-saw. Joyner's
voice tends to crack and fail, forever on the edge of breaking, with the heavy
suffering and sweeping emotion of the recently dumped.
On any album full of ballads, it's hard to make any one track stand out above the
other. The songs will usually bleed together in a fragrant, violet- colored ocean
that's more likely to put you to sleep than grab your attention. But here, once
again, Joyner proves his talent by avoiding even this, the most heinous, ball-
smashing, cliched trap a sad album can stumble into.
Although it seems at first that the soft melodies and lightly sung vocals of The
Lousy Dance would be great for lulling even the fussiest of babies to Sleepy-Land,
Joyner's creative songwriting and vivid lyrics keep your mind buzzing. It's that level
of intelligence and creativity that keeps this record from being just another sappy
album. It's also Joyner's raw charisma, combined with his talent and the naked,
unarmored emotion of his songs that will hopefully snag him the critical and economic
success he clearly deserves. And maybe that'll cheer him up, but for the listener's
sake, let's hope not.
-Steven Byrd