Willy Mason - Where The Humans Eat

Genre rock Publisher Astralwerks External Links Official Willy Mason Website Official Astralwerks Website

Willy Mason was one of those artists that I heard, and read, a whole lot of hype about before even a single note of his music passed through my ears. Much of it seemed to center on one of two things, his surprisingly young age or the fortuitous circumstances that resulted in him signing with Conor Oberst's Team Love label. Despite all the blogger love the guy and his breakthrough track "Oxygen" were getting, I was just never intrigued enough to follow through on checking him out - even with my borderline obsessive love of all things Bright Eyes (yeah, I'm far from perfect). But, persistent little bugger that he is, his name kept popping up in front of me more and more as time went on. Sure it was just a coincidental placing of his album on a record store shelf here or a throwaway namedrop there, but I seriously could not seem to shake the guy. It got to the point where I was starting to hate him for just showing up so damn often. So of course it had to be his album that shows up in my mailbox for me to review a couple weeks ago. To quote Earl Hickey, "I am karma's bitch."

Given the lengths I had gone to not only ignoring, but actively avoiding, Mason for no good reason at all - I was fully prepared to fall immediately in love with Where the Humans Eat. That's how this process normally works, I avoid an artist and end up kicking myself later for missing out on something I could have been enjoying for quite some time. But not this time, I didn't exactly fall in love but I did get interested enough to at least keep my eye on this one in the future. After the first couple of songs I was wondering if this was even the right guy - Willy Mason was supposed to be this nineteen year-old kid, but I was certain that the voice behind the bluesy shuffle of "Gotta Keep Movin" belonged to some grizzled bar band veteran and not some starry-eyed teenager from Martha's Vineyard. It just didn't match up with my image of some trust fund kid slumming awkwardly through his "ironic" reassessment of roots music. After some quick research I was reassured that I had the right disc in my player and surged onward with a slightly more interested ear.

As the tracks rolled by I realized that nothing about this disc was "slumming" or "ironic" and that Mason has some definite chops, as evidenced by both his guitar playing and his knack for twisting even the most awkward sounding melody into an engaging journey. The voice is something I had to work a little bit to go beyond, especially during the horrific falsetto bits on "All You Can Do," but much like my beloved Oberst the off-putting voice becomes one of Mason's biggest tools and brightest charms. His oddly appealing delivery kept my attention much longer than most singer-songwriters of this ilk do, especially when his lyrics devolved into standard blues cliché ("I ain't gonna fear no pain no more") and sub-standard Dylan castoffs (the entirety of "Hard Hand To Hold").

But every single time I thought I'd pegged the guy, he threw some sort of curve ball that made me step back and instantly reassess my eagerness to write him off - be it the undeniably joyous instrumental break in "Fear No Pain" or a line like "you're just a kid, you shouldn't read Dostoevsky at your age." When I finally hit the album's payoff in the beautifully uplifting chorus of "Oxygen" (well worth every byte of blogged praise) I found myself more intrigued than ever but still not entirely convinced. Mason is, without a doubt, a very gifted musician with a vision unique enough to stand out in the overcrowded singer-songwriter genre, but his tendency to fall victim to lyrical cliché keeps him from being as compelling as he probably could be. Then again, considering his age, he's got more than enough time to iron out his few wrinkles and mature into one of the greats. If nothing else, I discovered a true gem in the form of "Oxygen" and maybe even learned my lesson about ignoring names that keep popping up on my radar. Nah, probably not, karma always needs a good reason to kick me in the ass now and then.