The rural Welsh hills seem to agree with expatriate American artist, musician, and novelist Jeb Loy Nichols. He states on his website's front page that: "I lived in London, I lived in New York. I moved here to not be there. I came here so I could make a certain kind of art and music, so I could write a certain kind of book….I didn’t want to be rich or successful or fulfilled or content or admired…. " Nichols, a country boy at heart, was born in Wyoming and raised in Missouri and Texas. He roamed the world as a visual artist and musician. He settled on a farm in Wales a decade ago, and his recordings since have been gems. After publishing his first novel, Suzanne & Gertrude, in 2020, Nichols returned with the simply titled Jeb Loy for Finnish indie soul label Timmion, backed by its house band Cold Diamond & Mink, an overdubbed female backing chorus with Wanda Felicia, and a horn section arranged by jazz giant Jukka Eskola.
These ten tunes find the singer-songwriter expressing a hard-won humble, worldly wisdom in an idiosyncratic brand of rootsy modern R&B that captures Southern soul, Americana, and pop balladry in its web. It's a summertime album that's flush with poignancy. "The World Loves a Fool" struts a beefy guitar vamp atop a swaying horn section as Nichols expresses disillusionment with competitive human ambition: "They're building rocket ships/They're gonna go to Mars/They messed up this world/Now they're off to the stars…. If you get too clever, you gotta look after yourself it's true/But if you're a fool, the world looks after you…." We Gotta Work It Out" offers a floating Hammond B-3 in the backdrop with a strummed acoustic guitar up front. They guide Nichols' exhortation to his beloved to stick it out despite their troubles because those in the lonely world are greater. Single "I Just Can't Stop" is an airy ballad with a bouncy drum kit and breezy guitars as horns frame each line. Nichols testifies to his sadness -- not bitterness -- as "big trouble" brews up all around him. On the gentle yet loping romantic soul groover "My Love" and the steely manifesto-like jazzy R&B of "Living It Up," Nichols juxtaposes the simplicity of his quiet, solitary environment with the increasingly destructive cost of humanity in competition, professionally, politically, spiritually, and materially. He accepts the struggles and small victories of living a small life far from the world's crushing hustle. Closer "Can't Cheat the Dance" weds Stax and Motown amid jumping horns, slippery guitars, and double-timed breaks. Nichols and Felicia expose status-seeking and self-protection as tragically grand illusions that distract from the rhythm of life in all its syncopated complexity and glory. Despite its gentle, easy grooves, Jeb Loy is a gorgeous, weighty, album-length meditation on surviving the world with gratitude for what you have and keeping your soul intact.