The Tao of Roots Rock
I Recall Standing as Though Nothing Could Fall
by Matthew Ryan
Usually when I write a music review, I like to spend a week or so ahead of time listening to the album while I go about my daily routines–driving to work, washing dishes, etc. I've that found leaving it on in the background like this is the easiest way for me to absorb the content before penning the actual review.
However, this proved extremely difficult with Matthew Ryan's I Recall Standing As Though Nothing Could Fall. Not because the album is bad–far from it. Like most of Ryan's previous albums, I Recall Standing isn't the kind of thing you can leave on in the background and forget about. It commands your attention with an unmistakable sense of purpose.
I Recall Standing, Ryan's thirteenth album, finds the songwriter continuing to explore ways to merge his Nashville alt country sound with new wave electronica. The album is full of crystaline piano melodies, brooding fuzzed-out guitars, and twinkling synth beats, all of it brought together by Ryan's distinctive voice, which teeters between a ghostly whisper and an all-out Tom Waits' growl. There are moments of elegant fragility, like the violin-laden "Song for a Friend," and there are moments of cool, gritty bravado, like "All Hail the Kings of Trash." In between, you've got a stellar collection of tunes from an artist that No Depression magazine once hailed as "the best singer-songwriter rock kinda thing to come around since Freedy Johnston's Can You Fly?"
To call Ryan an activist songwriter might be a stretch, though the anti-war sentiment on I Recall Standing is as forceful as it has been on any of his albums. The most obvious instance of this is in "I Don't Want a Third World War":
Our darkness is catching up with us
We're turning to cannibals
Darkness is catching up with us
We're acting like animals
Look a child in the eye and say
What were you hoping for?
You shouldn't expect too much
Look a child in the eye and say
What are you crying for?
You should never expect too much from us
This is as close as one of Ryan's songs comes to Not Working, mostly because of how strikingly direct it is; those familiar with his other albums know that the thrust of his songwriting talent lies in the poeticism of his lyrics, the way in which the seemingly disparate images in his lyrics speak to the complexity of human suffering. Of course, those folks probably also know that this isn't saying much: in the big scheme of things, even Ryan's near misses ring truer and more heartfelt than the top selections from some of his Nashville contemporaries' catalogues.
I once asked Ryan in an interview to describe his songwriting process. He responded by explaining that there really wasn't one; the songs crafted themselves. "It can get dangerously mystical talking about songwriting," he said, "but for me it's a form of meditation." Dangerously mystical. That seems like an oddly apt way to describe I Recall Standing, the way it grips your focus all the way through. A kind of hypnosis. You want a challenge? Put the album on and try not to listen. Just try.
