Michael Abernethy - The Homegrown Snob

Teetering on the brink of local-election insanity and burnout, two things made things OK in October.

The first — which no one really cares about — was swimming with wild dolphins on the coast of Naples, Fla., a few weeks back. The second, more relevant to this blog, is Monsters of Folk.

The term “supergroup” used to mean something, thanks to the enduring work of the Traveling Wilburys and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. More recently, it’s said with a derogatory sneer about groups who are less-than-super: Chickenfoot, Audioslave, Alter Bridge, Velvet Revolver. (The Raconteurs and Broken Social Scene are excluded from this list of modern rock’s nadir, for obvious reasons.)

The Monsters of Folk is a supergroup that shouldn’t work but does.

I’m probably the most surprised of anyone.

Monsters of Folk isn’t really folk music at all. It’s A-list indie folk-pop-rock, created by Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, folk-rocker M. Ward and producer/instrumentalist Mike Mogis.

There are so many reasons why this shouldn’t work, the least of which would seem to be ego. Here’s some reasons:

– Conor Oberst/Bright Eyes was once an indie darling, inspiring rapturous praise and next-Dylan adulations from the press and hordes of fans. In the beginning and up until about 2004, his constant complaints of life on the road spent drinking too much, drugging too much and sleeping around too much mixed with a leftist political lean made him seem worldly and misunderstood. But after three albums of this, he just seemed like a spoiled, self-indulgent jerk. People stopped caring what he had to say. Well, I stopped caring what he had to say.

– As the front of the psychedelic Southern Rock band My Morning Jacket, Jim James amazed with his glass-shattering falsetto and his growth as a songwriter on 2005’s modern classic Z. But after a 3 1/2 year hiatus, James led the band to 2008’s Evil Urges, a sprawling, incoherent mess of a rock record, with throwaway lyrics and almost zero memorable tunes on its first side. It’s safe to say the band’s (and James’) cache was growing thin.

– M. Ward has been workmanlike from the start, with subtle and solid — but not amazing turns — as a singer/songwriter. Last year’s She & Him project with Zooey Deschanel attracted tons of attention, but didn’t hold my interest over time.

– Mike Mogis is an awesome producer who had a lot to do with those great early Bright Eyes records. Unfortunately, he also had a lot to do with those last couple not-so-great Bright Eyes records and disappointing albums by The Faint and Azure Ray.

But damn if this Monsters of Folk record isn’t one of the best records of the year. Hell, at this point I’m tempted to say it’s THE best record of the year.

All it takes is a listen to the opener, “Dear God (Sincerely, M.O.F.)” to find out why. The James-led song about spiritual yearning and our never-answered questions about God plays over a Marvin Gaye-ish tune. It’s a serious song — played without the irony of the band’s jokey name – and acts as a left-hook. On top of that, it’s just plain magical.

The second track, “Say Please,” announces one of the record’s many left turns, into sun-drenched power-pop harmonies and an effortless hook. The three frontmen are still trading vocals and lyrics and still sound like a true band.

The ego-less streak continues on “Whole Lotta Losin’,” where M. Ward pushes 12-bar rockabilly into a song about friends leaving town and good times passing you by.

That quality control stays in place for the majority of the album’s longish 15-track run, and most of the material feels unified by a spirit of fun and adventurousness, where each of the mainplayers drops their self-consciousness enough to let their best performances — not their most indulgent ones — come through. Only Oberst’s preachy “Man Named Truth” loses the plot.

Song for song, the winner is James, who bookends the album with gentle religious themes (”Dear God,” and “His Master’s Voice”) and plays in between with effortless ditties about elephant tusks and Tootsie Roll Pops. It feels like M. Ward was the enabler, and his songs — “Whole Lotta Losin’”, “Baby Boomer,” and “The Sandman, The Brakeman and Me” — are good-natured and fit the group dynamic best.

But “Tezmacal” and “Map of the World” are really solid Oberst songs, too.

Rave, rave, rave. It’s all I seem to be able to do for this band.

And this record is enough to make me wish these guys never worked separately.

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