One of rock’s great voices returns with something to say

Peter Wolf’s first new release in eight years will instantly make fans realize just how big a hole his absence left in their lives. It will also make you long for a time when cool rock music was everywhere, could be heard regularly on the radio, and didn’t need adjectives to claim it independent of the mainstream – it was the mainstream. Wolf’s solo works have always retained the fire of his earlier sides with the J. Geils Band, but they were also the product of an adult voice. Together with longtime producer Kenny White, Wolf’s crafted a sleek album of rock music that draws heavily on its R&B, soul and blues roots. He’s written or co-written all but one of the fourteen tracks, and covers Alan Toussaint’s “Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky.” The latter is a perfect vehicle for the Wolf showmanship.

Wolf duets on the opening “Tragedy” with Shelby Lynne, calling, responding and harmonizing as a couple dancing passionately on the razor’s edge between reconciliation and extinction. The song opens with Wolf singing against rich guitars, giving listeners a moment to luxuriate in the qualities of his voice. But as Lynne and the band kick-in, she proves herself the perfect foil and the arrangement builds and subsides with the song’s exhilarated and exhausted emotions. Romantic turmoil and opportunities are considered alongside Wolf’s thoughts on mortality. “There’s Still Time” is resolute in making the best of current opportunities, while “Lying Low” looks forward. The themes twine together in “Green Fields of Summer,” a duet with Neko Case that realizes the actions and relationships of the here and now echoe into the hereafter.

Mostly it’s women that are on Wolf’s mind. He dreams and chases, fights and makes up, keeps an eternal flame in “Always Asking for You” and laments losses in “Then it Leaves us All Behind.” There’s hard-won experience in both his optimism and heartbreak, and he expresses this with humor on the motor-mouthed soul rap “Overnight Lows.” The album closes with a pair of honorifics, the retrospective tribute to Willy DeVille, “The Night Comes Down,” and the beautifully crafted Merle Haggard duet, “It’s Too Late for Me.” Wolf sounds great throughout the album, in good voice and reveling in his blue moods; his new songs are crafted to tell stories with their arrangements as well as their lyrics. Let’s hope the next triumph isn’t eight years away! [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]