Jenny Lewis – ‘Joy’All’ album review: the accessible face of country
‘Psychos’ is one of the year’s finest singles and it will remain so when December comes around. This poppy epic welcomes you into Jenny Lewis‘ new album Joy’All with the same sanguine aura of parting the curtains to a sunny dawn. It happily sets the tone for what follows. Inspired by a songwriting masterclass by Beck, her fifth solo album sees her reach a sense of liberation that allows the songs to swagger from genre to genre, dole out earnest life lessons, and have a ball—all safe in the knowledge that they have a safe structure to return to.
Country can often carry a slight perturbing air, especially for UK listeners, because of its potential to become a corny caricature. But Lewis subverts that with a marked sense of knowing who she is at this stage in her life and embracing the odd cowgirl motif with absolute sincerity. Along with a greater set of resplendent hooks that the Alnwick Fishing Tackle Museum, this makes her the new accessible face of country, proudly revitalising a derided realm of culture and helping to bring its charm to new masses.
With the whispery sexiness of singles like ‘Giddy Up’, Lewis refuses to be hemmed in by any genre norms as she swaggers with a sense of confidence in finding a new songwriting purple patch. Sometimes this creates a shockingly personal record—but refreshingly one that caries the sense of lived-in sincerity rather than someone simply leafing through Raymond Chandler for a few borrowed hard-truths. Proof of that comes from purred lines like “My 40s are kicking my ass, and handing them to me in a Margarita glass,” that seamlessly ties Lewis’ own experiences into her knack for melody.
This resulted in the record coming together quickly, and it shows… in the best possible way. She simply text Grammy-winning producer Dave Cobb asking him to produce, and things quickly got moving. “Dave works fast,” Lewis explains, “and we cut the bulk of the record with his incredible house band (Nate Smith, Brian Allen and Cobb on guitar, and myself on acoustic guitar & vocals) live on the floor in a couple of weeks. Jess Wolfe came back to the studio to provide background vocals on the record and then Greg Leisz and Jon Brion added pedal steel, B-Bender guitar and Chamberlin, respectively, back in L.A..”
That house-band tightness is ever-present in the instrumentation. The might have solidified structures but somewhere in the textures there is a note of jamming swing. This all adds a breezy vitality to things. It captures the days of Nashville’s old pomp, but with modern R&B flourishes and pop choruses it is far from pastiche, modernising the country tones in a bright new fashion that importantly seems to be driven by Lewis’ own muse rather than orchestrated after the fact.
That muse hits lyrical highs with ‘Essence of Life’ as she showcases her Skeeter Davis-like crooning and poetic wordplay. With punchy moments interestingly coming in on the off-beat and the topline falling in and out of syncopation, the track provides a blissful backdrop that keeps renewing your attention on what she’s saying rather than just the luscious sound in very clever ways. The song serves as a signpost for the development of Lewis’ songwriting on this front.
But above all, the reason she will now be the country star sneaking in your record collection is the irresistible catchiness of the songs. With her sultry tones and siren-like lull, these tracks draw you in like the smell of a bakery with two quid in your pocket and time to kill.
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