Yes, enunciation is the most cited issue for Simpson, but the larger issue comes in wondering why he’d choose to bury one of his best assets! His thick Kentucky accent may have always been hard to get used to, but his emotional range is damn near unmatched, often finding him reflective of his past through existential musings and other forms of strife. There’s no easy starting discussion point with this album, but one criticism that easily carries over from past Simpson works is the vocal production. Even as someone who never bought into the Simpson fandom, yet still liked his work, SOUND & FURY is a good, genre-bending slice of synthwave and rock, but it’s the kind of project, too, where Simpson feels burned out both creatively … and literally. Honestly, perhaps it’s just a cause of burnout from never knowing what Simpson is going to do next, but despite delivering a fairly potent adrenaline rush in SOUND & FURY, this also scans as his least interesting album to date in nearly every department.
As already mentioned, country fans wanting another High Top Mountain left years ago, and for everyone else … well, SOUND & FURY may be a soundtrack, but it needs to stand as its own work of art without the help of the film, so how did it turn out? And, after leaving Atlantic Records and turning his love of Japanese culture into an anime film and subsequent soundtrack in SOUND & FURY, it does make one wonder who’s left, in terms of his fandom. I’d say to just throw out expectations for Simpson from now on, but if that’s an alarming statement for anyone in 2019, they haven’t been paying attention. Musically, though, one could even argue Simpson burned that bridge a long time ago, even though A Sailor’s Guide To Earth wasn’t nearly as huge of a departure from country music as some fans claim. From trying to burn every bridge with the country music community (because if he didn’t, of course country radio would play his material anyway … yeah, that’s it!) to saying in a recent interview that, had he won the Grammy award for A Sailor’s Guide To Earth, he would have handed the award to Beyoncé and walked out of the building (the best choice for those respective albums, to be honest). For as much as attention as he still draws from fans, you can tell Simpson no longer wants that. The long version: Even with the buzz of a new album and accompanying anime film, Sturgill Simpson feels like an afterthought these days.Īnd, believe it or not, that’s not a negative remark I’m making about him it’s a commentary on his actions over, well … his entire career.
And if the listener makes it through, there’s the closing seven-minute drone of “Fastest Horse in Town” with its squalling feedback and thudding percussion to send you on your way. The riff-heavy “Best Clockmaker On Mars” features husky synth-guitar interplay sounding like Jack White on serious psychedelics. The heavy synthesizers driving “Make Art Not Friends” (perhaps that should be this album’s theme) are straight out of the Tangerine Dream-meets-Kraftwerk Euro-pop songbook. Trace the driving electronics of “Sing Along” back to ’80s new wavers The Cars, New Order and the Stone Roses with only Simpson’s reverbed vocals an indication of whose album this is. Opening Pink Floyd-styled instrumental “Ronin” with its quicksilver David Gilmour influenced lead guitar over pumping space-rock beats could be from any prog rocker, but not Sturgill Simpson. It doesn’t take long for the concept to kick in. Certainly Simpson’s 2019 song, the honky-tonking title track to Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die flick, didn’t prepare anyone for this.
If his previous Grammy winning 2016 A Sailor’s Guide To Earth pushed boundaries with its lush orchestrations, jazzy horns and Nirvana cover, this one demolishes and confounds any audience expectations. While not quite as radical as Lou Reed unleashing the dissonant, experimental, guitar assault of 1975’s Metal Machine Music on an unsuspecting public, Sturgill Simpson takes an equally drastic and potentially fan alienating musical turn with the startling Sound & Fury. And now for something completely different.