Cass McCombs :: Interior Live Oak
Photo: Shervin Lainez
You can hear a Cass McCombs tune, without mistaking it for anyone else, from a mile away as its harmonies hum through the sweaty speakers of some student’s stereo that’s blaring from their high-mileage car several blocks away from where you currently are. As it gets closer, the lyrics and melodic mood from the full band backing him begin to stir the overall chemistry of the streets, and the people gracing its multi-directional paths leading nowhere simultaneously, while McCombs’ voice becomes much clearer as the car pulls up to the chipped curb to pick you up for a road trip you’ll never forget. Whether it’s Dylan, Buffett, Young, or Zandt, some stories are best told through song. The only way to fully grasp that melodic message is to lean into the whispering wind with arms stretched out wide, eyes closed, chin tilted up towards the sky, and feet firmly grounded as you become one with the elements of the human experience. Whether it’s the soft, intentionally intimate ideas or the majestic melodies that pour from his meditative mind of tonal textures and poetic precision, his presence is known and will stop you dead in your tracks, no matter the expedition. From the early days of his 4AD releases to the sweltering spirituality of his later Anti- titles like 2016’s “Mang Love” to the more scholastic soundscapes of 2023’s “Sing and Play New Folk Songs for Children” with longtime friend Greg Gardner, McCombs’ ability to shape lift, while simultaneously holding his ground, is sincerely based in melodic myth.
Photo: Silvia Grav
Following up on last year’s release of the archival collection of songs from 1999 to 2000, “Seed Cake On Leap Year,” the veteran musician returns with an eagerly electrifying body of work titled “Interior Live Oak” that brings forth an iconically intense introduction to the rare air that is a McCombs record, while also demonstrating that lessons learned make for great stories later. Serving as a sophisticated songstress surfing the silver linings found in the crippled crevices of culture, where the cowards that take it to the limit of embarrassing extremes dwell, McCombs brings his latest work to the sonic surface with a remarkable rage that soars across the watermarks of peace and war like an existential eagle flying high. Inspired by a particular tree species native to Northern California, “Interior Live Oak” is exactly the kind of tonal temperature of familiar weather, and eternal emotion to knock you on your ass, while simultaneously bringing a gorgeous gospel through the otherwise tainted chapel of a community capable of cosmic connection. Recorded mostly in the Bay Area and New York, the album’s overall impact on the senses has a bicoastal range that carefully arcs over the entirety of the US like a revolutionary rainbow of prismatic perfection before disappearing into the vapors of the past once again. Calling on supreme guidance from subliminal songsmith Chris Cohen to help co-produce and engineer the album, McCombs brings the exciting essence of the early days of record-making and poetic production by balancing a stoic approach alongside the blistered backdrop of a world gone absolutely bonkers. With tracks like “Peace,” “Who Removed The Cellar Door,” “Diamonds In The Mine,” and “Home At Last” all swandiving simultaneously into the docile depths of the ocean’s salty surface, only to reveal that the current is a universal clock ticking to the ritualistic rhythms of the planet’s heartbeat, McCombs matches its energy by exploring his impeccable efforts in storytelling through song.
Photo: Silvia Grav
