As a songwriter beloved by everyone from Cameron Crowe to Stephen King but practically unheard of outside of his native country, Idaho born songster Josh Ritter's reputation is that of the classic under-appreciated chanteuse. Of course vaguely folk driven singer-songwriters are ten a penny these days but what sets Ritter apart is a keen grasp of structure and melody and a way with words which aligns him with a firm tradition of literate writers starting at Bob Dylan and leading right up to Conor Oberst. Ritter's sixth album finds him in a reflective and downcast mood (ground zero for the discerning American troubadour) as the gorgeous single 'Change Of Time' ferries the melody from 'Fools Rush In' over plaintive acoustics which build into a stirring, epic climax that sets the record up wonderfully. In fact for an album attributed to one man 'So Runs The World Away' sounds and feels like a truly epic record brimming with all the organic bluster of a hurricane.
Ritter's latest opus is a deceptively eclectic work too, on darkly hewn dirges such as 'Rattling Locks' and 'The Remnant' for example he channels Tom Waits with chattering rhythms and loose, drunken guitars. The achingly beautiful 'Another New World' meanwhile weaves it's spindly web over 7 minutes as fractured guitar melodies wrap around Ritter's words of an epic, doomed voyage between spaces of sparse clarity, never have I heard mariachi trumpets sound so sad. This song in particular exposes Ritter's way with a story (which bodes well for the novel he's currently working on) as the voyage of the Annabelle Lee is recounted in glorious metaphorical detail as our narrator compares his beloved ship to that of a lover ("I burned her to keep me alive every night, in the lover's embrace of her hold"). There's none of the whimsy here which afflicts most modern americana, in fact in many ways Ritter has more in common lyrically and musically with Leonard Cohen than anyone else. See 'The Remnant's violent musings on physics for proof ("The billion tiny teeth that tear the charge from your atoms, in a trillion tiny bites they'll eat the meat from your pearl").
To say Ritter paints his music in only the darkest colours would be a disservice though, indeed he is capable of writing the kind of pop songs Bruce Springsteen would be proud to call his own with the infectious 'Orbital' and 'Southern Pacifica' nailing the mixture of pop immediacy and world weary americana that Wilco used to specialise in. There's even genuine wonder at the transformative power of love in Orbital's dying seconds as Ritter exclaims "When I catch a glimpse of you the room lights up", a world away from the miserable musings of the records opening numbers.
It remains to be seen if Ritter's witty metaphorical mind will be able to pull off that novel but if it fails he needn't worry. 'So Runs The World Away' cements Josh Ritter's reputation as a great american songwriter operating at the peak of his creative spark.
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