Monsters of Folk 'Monsters of Folk'

I am pretty overwhelmed with the amount of new releases I have to review at the moment! I am the proud owner of the new Mountain Goats album on promo and have been listening to that to try to get to know the songs before the UK shows in a couple of weeks. I also have the new Richard Hawley record to assess and am currently awaiting delivery in the next couple of days of the Twilight Sad, Hope Sandoval and Port O'Brien records...

'Monsters of Folk' is the hideous title of the new collaboration between M Ward, Conor Oberst, Jim James and Mike Mogis. Having previously toured together in some kind of Rolling Thunder Revue style, the four have now made a record together in some kind of Travelling Wilburys style.

The record is split pretty evenly into songs written and fronted by each of the artists and each plays to his strengths. Oberst's contributions are largely wordy, country songs of the type that worked well on his self-titled solo record a couple of years ago, Ward does his retro, smokey-ballads and fuzzy rockers and Jim James brings soul/country pastiches. James actually provides the highlight, in the record's most untypical song. 'Dear God' is a striking soul number, sounding modern and catchy.

There's not enough of this, elsewhere much is stodgy and staid. Oberst sound like he is going through the motions, providing mellow country tunes with little direction or effort. Worst of all is 'Man Named Truth', country rock by numbers and with bland lyrics. Ward's contributions are largely more successful, 'The Sandman, the Brakeman and Me' is undeniably lovely, 'Whole Lotta Losin' is cliched but lively at least and while 'Slow Down Jo' is lazy and languid, that is at least, apparently, the intention in this case.

The record's main problem is that over the course of an overly long sixteen tracks, the mood hardly ever changes from mid-tempo and middle of the road and the lyrical focus is on general, broad themes such as 'hitting the road...moving on..." and 'life and death', there's little in the way of interesting ideas and wordplay. No song sounds like it was begging to be written, instead much seems forced and directionless.

Also, it seems a terrible waste to have a record with three truly great singers and then have them hardly ever sing together. A few years ago on Jenny Lewis' 'Rabbit Fur Coat' LP, Ward, Lewis and Oberst sang 'Handle With Care' together, alternating verses and sharing the choruses. It sounded vibrant, exciting even and it shows what 'Monsters of Folk' could have been, with just a little more inspiration and invention.

As it is, there is plenty of pleasant, listenable music here, but it is not, I would imagine, a record you would feel the need to return to time and time again.

6.5

['Monsters of Folk' is out now on Rough Trade]