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JOHN DOE – Fables in a Foreign Land (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 41:24 minutes | 508 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Fat Possum

Ever a rock star but always a poet, John Doe is also a genuinely good-to-great rock singer, a determined, prolific songwriter and a live performer who you never want to miss. More than 40 years after his former band X burst out of Los Angeles with an album named after their hometown, Doe has settled into being a dusty, urban, cowboy poet. Produced by Steve Berlin (Los Lobos)—who per the liner notes also plays “assorted sneaky things”—and recorded at Public Hi-Fi Studios in Austin, TX, by Dave Way, Doe is now backed by bassist Kevin Smith and drummer Conrad Choucroun in what he’s calling the John Doe Folk Trio for Fables in a Foreign Land. With an uncluttered, unprocessed sound where the drums are often pushed too far forward in the three-player mix, Fables was recorded live on acoustic instruments in whole takes that were edited later, a method Doe compares to Rudy Van Gelder’s Blue Note sound. Despite that dubious, cross-genre stretch, Doe’s songwriting remains careful and appealing, if not too deep. In “Down South” a character who sleeps on the ground and is enveloped in unnamed angst hopes that it doesn’t rain in a hooky chorus that’s devoid of specifics and big words. The exception is “Destroying Angels,” the ballad he co-wrote with X bandmate (and ex-wife) Exene Cervenka and Shirley Manson of Garbage. It’s a tale of murder by mushrooms, where the killer admits “I stuffed her full of death caps.” The secret ingredient, and what ultimately carries all the songs, is Doe’s elastic voice which is still capable of the soarings that once made X at least a cut above most punk bands. Sometimes the simplicity works in his favor as in “Sweetheart,” a genuine folk song classic in the Woody Guthrie model that again, Doe successfully leans into as a knowing and expressive singer. This is punk rock aging gracefully.
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