Who Will You Believe

Album review

After a long break from his musical career, which began in the early 1990s with the Western Massachusetts-based Scud Mountain Boys, Joe Pernice reunites with many of his past collaborators including his brother Bob and Peyton Pinkerton on guitars. Always a solid songsmith initially working in an Uncle Tupelo/Wilco bag, Pernice later branched out to catchy rootsy pop music in albums released under his own name.

"December in her Eyes" reveals what Pernice  treasures most in his music collection, as well as how he's still capable of elevating his game.  There are classic 1960s Bacharach-influenced violins and trumpet swaying as he pleads for a friend's intervention in a relationship drifting towards the rocks.

Engineered and mixed by Pernice, Mike McKenzie and Liam Jaeger in Toronto, Ontario, with additional work by Jeff Galegher at Carnassial Sound, the sound is what you'd expect from an old pro like Pernice: alive, unprocessed, intimate in all the right places. He switches gears into buzzy indie rock guitar heroics in "Hey, Guitars," bowing to the power of his chosen instrument: "Hey, guitar/ Let me see your scar/ Tune me up and turn me on/ Amen."  A whiff of politics imbues "A Man of Means," a cheeky, creaky Beatle-esque rocker with an ob-la-di, ob-la-da chorus ("Do-it-did-it-done-it-do-it-did-it-done-it").

Frequent vocal partner Neko Case emotes in her usual strong fashion on "I Don't Need That Anymore," a duet that details another relationship that's run its course: "It's a fool who'll tell you love is simple, and less is almost always more." Horns join the massed vocals of the Toronto-based choral group Choir! Choir! Choir! in "The Purple Rain," Pernice's grand ode to a number of recent tragedies in his personal life.  The combined effect gives extra weight to the chorus of "Remember me to her sea-bound train/ Remember me to her fruited plains/ Purple mountains in purple rain won't always separate the shining seas/ The wake is washing over me." A long overdue musical return by an always compelling creative. © Robert Baird/Qobuz