In listening to
Paul Thorn's fourth album, and the direct follow-up to 2002's iconoclastic wonder
Mission Temple Fire Works Stand, one cannot help but think that he's spent some time listening to other people's records as well.
Are You With Me is a collection of self-penned songs about love; for, against, happy, sad, grief-stricken and bewildered. Nonetheless, it feels like a singer's record. In the laid-back, R&B-drenched grooves one can imagine
Thorn listening to recordings as diverse as
Lowell George's
Thanks I'll Eat It Here,
Frankie Miller's High Life,
Willy Deville's Backstreets of Desire,
Boz Scaggs'
Some Change, and
Allen Toussaint's From a Whisper to a Scream. It's not that
Thorn's fine album sounds like these discs in the slightest, or that he actually referenced them, it's the feel that's similar. Those familiar with
Thorn's rollicking blues-based approach to rhythm and blues will be surprised this time out because the Tupelo, Mississippi native's sound comes right from heart of Southern soul on this outing. The album feels like a suite, examining all the stages of love, from bliss to heartbreak, from acceptance to the willingness to try again. Horns, backing vocalists and funky basslines abound in tracks like "She Won't Cheat on Us," as do the shimmering snare and hand drums prompting languid syncopated guitars and a gritty, emotionally honest vocal on "I Want You to Love on Me." There's the dirty horns and B3 that frame "High," and the light, Caribbean-soul inflected R&B that slips and winds around the singer in "If I Can Get Over Her," and the post-midnight smoky groove where crooner and in-the-pocket six-strings pair on "That's a Lie" that preempts the summery afternoon shimmy of "I Don't Wanna Know." Everywhere the sound of Southern Soul permeates, and
Thorn's sweet croon rises above and slips through his words.
Thorn is the kind of wordsmith where humor, tragedy and emotional honesty entwine and intermingle -- check out the simmering deep soul of "If You Can't Love Me Forever." This album stands in sharp contrast to the barroom rowdiness of his earlier outings; if this record lacks the intensity that
Mission Temple Fire Works Stand has, it's because it is supposed to. There is real vulnerability in
Thorn's protagonists and the way he sings their truths; they're never wimps, they're merely hopeful or broken men trying to communicate from inside their experiences. Ultimately,
Thorn shows once again he's a songwriter to be reckoned with, but this time out he proves in spades that he's a soul singer who can slip down into the murk and mess of human emotions with style and aplomb. ~ Thom Jurek