Following 2017's
Rosewood Almanac by four years,
Will Stratton's seventh album,
The Changing Wilderness, is unique thus far in his catalog for its intentionally outward-looking viewpoint. Still reliably pensive and intimate, it also continues to highlight the onetime composition major's roving harmonic progressions and ever-increasing adeptness at fingerstyle guitar. With arrangements detailed by occasional keys, woodwinds, electric guitar, and rhythm section, the album was engineered and mixed by
Stratton in his home studio and features contributions from musicians including but not limited to drummer
Matt Johnson (
Jeff Buckley,
Rufus Wainwright) and singers
Cassandra Jenkins and Maia Friedman. Inspired both by the January 2017 U.S. presidential inauguration and a neon sculpture by artist Dan Flavin located near
Stratton's upstate New York home, "Black Hole" takes a cautionary view of authoritarianism and its often-lasting hold. It features a full-band arrangement centered around a (for
Stratton) simple acoustic guitar-and-piano framework that adds vacillating woodwind-and-guitar patterns and spacy backing vocals to the choruses. Its lyrics include observations like, "Hatred corrupts, and it purifies, too/It simplifies thoughts just like love can do." Some of his more intricate guitar work here can be heard on songs like the off-balance "Fate's Ghost," the dreamy, meter-shifting "Tokens," and album standout "The Rain," a guitar-centric track that forecasts consequences. Elsewhere, the more personal "When I've Been Born (I'll Love You)" still puts love in the context of withering surroundings. Alternately philosophical, critical, and appreciative as the album progresses,
The Changing Wilderness is smart and affecting throughout, with a timeless quality despite its topical inspirations. ~ Marcy Donelson