Ryley Walker albums

2021

Course in Fable - 92%

               There were two great folk rock records by men I heard this in 2021- Ryley Walker's Course in Fable and Steve Gunn's Other You. Both are amazing, but while Gunn's record looked deep to the past to come up with light psychedelic music, I feel Walker looked into the more immediate past and absorbed Louisville and Chicago's post rock sound into a more folk tradition. “Striking Down Your Big Premiere” starts off with a stumming of big major power chords (similar to, say, My Morning Jacket’s “What a Wonderful Man”) but quickly shifts gears into an odd time signature and many echoing guitar patterns with a somewhat placid folk melody at its heart. “A Lenticular Slap” is the most rewarding experience of all these songs, so many twists turns and modulations that even the best modern composers would have trouble keeping up. “Axis Bent” actually has a normal drum beat of sorts, but even this song is prone to the sort of twist and turns that often permeate Jazz music; “Clad with Bunk” can’t decide if it wants to be jovial or languid so its sort of both at the same time. Walker’s production quality on Course in Fable is sort of like a robot jumped in and made changes to the tempos of different parts of the songs- fans of underground bands like Gastr Del Sol, eat your heart out. This is an album for musicians looking to see what is possible with music, that is for sure.

               Walker’s lyrics set him apart from most of his contemporaries, no matter what the music sounds like he seems to always be talking about random themes from his life- Shivas, mathematics, different movies, doing drugs, quantum physics, tweakers, and much swearing in general. His voice is actually sort of pretty, but he seems to be rebelling against the music he himself makes and that fact makes his music very unique to him. “Rang Dizzy” and especially the ultra-catchy “Shiva with Dustpan” could defiantly be more well-known songs than some of the more challenging prog-rock tendencies present. But like Van Morrison with Astral Weeks or more recently, Bill Callahan’s 2013 masterwork of sorts Dream River, the merging of many genres present surrender to a cascading folk rock presence that fulfills the proceedings. To be even more specific, strange mix of 70’s John Martyn, 90’s Built to Spill and 2000’s Archer Prewitt. Make no mistake he has been at this for some time, but I feel the verve of progressive rock flowing through Course in Fable - as in what it really means to be ambitious and make rock music progress- makes this his best record yet.

Best Songs: Shiva with dustpan, A Lenticular Slap, Axis Bent