Jesse Sykes and The Sweet Hereafter - Like, Love, Lust and The Open Halls of the Soul

Genre rock Publisher Barsuk Records External Links Official Jesse Sykes Website Official Barsuk Records Website MP3: Jesse Sykes and The Sweet Hereafter - "LLL"

Let me tell you, my relationships aren't worth crap. Mostly open and shut cases. We can blame emotional distance and rampant bull-in-a-china-shop cynicism for that one. But in between bitter, blackened toast, you'll often find bright egg whites of optimism. Or maybe crisp, resilient bacon. Or whiskey and Xanax. I don't know what you eat for breakfast. Regardless, long relationships are a mystery to me. Long, intimate relationships are foreign to me, so much so that I strongly doubt their existence. When I get a hold of strong powerful emotions to the contrary, I have no choice but to take notice. Which brings me to Jesse Sykes and The Sweet Hereafter, and their latest album, Like, Love, Lust And The Open Halls of The Soul. In it, Sykes gazes at our transcendent loving bonds, how they define us and how completely demolished we are when they dissolve. It's some of the saddest, most lyrically emotive work I've ever heard. In fact, I'm convinced that Sykes has produced a Pantheon-level blues album. However, the tense of the traditional blues motif has been shifted completely. There's no "mah baby messin' 'round," or "lady treatin' me wrong" involved here. Those lines show current relationships that we curse and resent, yet continue to endure. In "LLL," Sykes is looking at everything in the past tense, remembering all the wonderful times, the horrific fights, the demolition, and she does it all from the afterlife, from a deep-deep-limbo. These experiences, which once brought such intense joy, have almost killed her.

And it's evident in her voice. Pained and beautiful, Sykes chokes out almost every word in a determined whisper. It's just unbelievably touching; you can hear the grainy scratches in her tear-stained words. And she happens to be one of those musical artists that literally DEMAND you listen to their lyrics. Country guitar melodies interspersed with piano, horn, and harmonica accompaniments provide a rich, flowing vehicle, but her poetry is the most integral component to her aesthetic. All together, they congeal exquisitely to express Sykes' despair and despondency that life-affirming connections to lovers, however strong, almost always slowly fray, then violently snap.

"Eisenhower Moon" mournfully hints at stagnation with the album's opening line "If it feels the same, how will we know/if it's breaking down?" Before you know it, it's been broken down for a long time, leaving Sykes to reminisce of the "happy times" in "LLL". Interestingly, even as she grieves over the loss of her blissful comfort, she bitterly notes that somewhere else in the world, new love is being forged where "someone else becomes the slave". "Morning, It Comes" features some more grief-stricken and incredibly self-depreciating sentiments. Now, even the "good things/the day brings" are only temporarily mentioned in hope that they can "help mend last night". Sykes laments how pitiful it is that we can knowingly fuck up what makes us happy, calling love a "feature/lost on us creatures so small".

In spite of all this melancholy, there are some signs of real strength, real determination to continue. The endings of "LLL" and "Station Grey" demonstrate Sykes' raging, growling guitar, and her hushed tone expands to a self-assured swell in "You Might Walk Away", and "I Like The Sound". However, the lasting imprint of this album is in the track "The Open Halls of the Soul". Here is the most revealing aspect of Jesse Sykes, showcasing her home's empty halls, once full of blissful activity, now howling with hollow wind. It's a waltzing final song of the night, finding some peace after so much emotional tumult. Sykes almost sounds pleased with its conclusion, but she could be slightly delirious from being so drop-dead weary and depressed. She's opened herself to us in this album, taught us something with all this heavenly pain. It's best to enjoy those 2-cheese omelets and muffins in bed, warm with your perfect, comfy snuggle-fuck before it all collapses and you're back dunking carbon-black toast into gentleman jack with caustic music critics.