The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter: Thoughts

Socially conscious white-boys with a guitar and a pad of paper are a dime a dozen nowadays. Luckily Bob Dylan came along and saved white America from Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, reminding us that, while we might not have created rock and roll, we did invent modern poetry.

Idaho born Josh Ritter seems to be part of the same Mid-Western Review that includes such artists as Bright Eyes, Sufjan Stevens, and the ever sprawling Arcade Fire. While Bright Eyes has distinguished himself by focusing on his voice’s crackling desperation (and indulging in the occasional electric experiment); and Sufjan Stevens continues to do a lot of heavy lifting as he makes sure his experiments maintain their mid-western moderation (regardless of the state he’s in); and Arcade Fire has, well…continued to add members/instruments/layers with each album; Ritter has kept close to his roots (Dylan and Cohen) channeling their lyrical dexterity into a fusion of mid-western rock and indie-pop-pretension, which, on this, his third album, The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, serves him well. While never hard enough to call himself “working class”, Ritter manages to exude a confidence that seems to separate him from his contemporaries. Sure, Ritter can keep his voice down with the best of them on songs like, “Still Beating”, “Wait for Love”, and the elegant “Temptations for Adam”; but (perhaps channeling a bit of Mellancamp) Ritter knows when to kick the doors down. The rocking first track, “To the Dogs or Whoever”, an electric ode to calamity, is a dynamic burner in which Ritter weaves a cleaver tapestry of romantic quests and historical analogy. In “The Right Moves”, Ritter fulfills the promise of the album’s title and crafts a song that could have easily been a number one single in 1977. If there is one thing Ritter’s contemporaries could learn from this album, it would be its’ much needed brevity: no long discourses and aimless narratives here. Ritter gets in and gets out. Relationships are dissected with a sense of urgency. For example: “Open Doors” is a song so bitingly brisk it sounds like Springsteen circa Tunnel of Love and is a worthy sequel to that albums masterpiece “Brilliant Disguise”.

The few missteps on this album result from Ritter becoming possessed by his idol Leonard Cohen, the exercises in misery are a bit much (“Wildfires” and “Moons”). Yet, at its core, Conquests puts Ritter right up there with his contemporaries and effectively raises the bar. Here’s hoping they rise to the challenge.

(Two) Song(s) I advocate paying real money for it’s(they’re) that good: “To the Dogs or Whoever”, “Open Doors”