(Roots Rock, Americana, Country-Soul) [CD] Birds of Chicago - Love in Wartime - 2018, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

#77701. Now/Sunlight (Jeremy Lindsay aka JT Nero / Allison Russell) 01:03
02. Never Go Back (Jeremy Lindsay aka JT Nero / Allison Russell) 02:33
03. Love in Wartime 05:50
04. Travelers 04:40
05. Try (Jeremy Lindsay aka JT Nero / Christopher Merrill) 05:11
06. Lodestar 04:38
07. Roll Away 02:40
08. Baton Rouge (Jeremy Lindsay aka JT Nero / Allison Russell) 06:07
09. Roisin Starchild (Jeremy Lindsay aka JT Nero / Allison Russell) 04:50
10. Super Lover 03:53
11. Derecho 04:05
All songs written by Jeremy Lindsay aka JT Nero unless indicated otherwise.

Roots band Birds of Chicago formed in 2012 as a collaboration between Chicago’s JT Nero (JT & the Clouds) and Vancouver’s Allison Russell (Po’ Girl). Although both singer/songwriters were actively leading their own projects, their combined efforts were convincing enough to make a go of it, and they set about recording their debut. Though a talented songwriter in her own right, a big part of the Birds of Chicago sound came from the material Nero had written specifically for Russell to interpret, and it was their combined voices that won over fans on 2012’s self-titled Birds of Chicago LP. Mixing folk, mountain gospel, soul, and rock, the two bandleaders and a revolving cast of players became a well-seasoned touring act, and in 2013 delivered the concert album Live from Space. To make their follow-up studio album, they enlisted Grammy-winning producer Joe Henry and spent 2015 recording Real Midnight, which was released early the following year. (Timothy Monger, AllMusic)

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Chicago is home to a lot of great music acts who produce a lot of fine records, and as happy as I am to shine a light on them, and sing their praises, I make a habit of measuring out my enthusiasm for any given project, of holding back on superlatives, reserving them for some projected moment when I’ll really need them. And behold, that moment is at hand: Birds of Chicago’s “Love in Wartime” is a flat-out extraordinary piece of work. I’ll go ahead and say it’s the best album by a local band in 2018*; and if something comes along in the next seven months that makes me reappraise that statement… well, we should only be so goddamn lucky.
After the seismic shock that rattled the American firmament in November 2016, it took a while for culture to shake off its stupefaction and address the new reality. We’re just now seeing the first artistic responses to the rise of Trumpism, and they come in two varieties: expressions of existential despair or testaments to the enduring human spirit. You can tick “Love in Wartime” in column B. What the album does, and does profoundly well, is resurrect both the psychic and sonic aura of rock’s early seventies—another bitterly awful period in American history, which paradoxically provoked an outpouring of gorgeous, euphoric music. Listening to “Love in Wartime,” I was struck by its resonances to artists who haven’t crossed my mind in decades: Leon Russell, Merry Clayton, Delaney & Bonnie, Melanie Safka, Lee Michaels. There’s the same focus on rapturous melodies, infectious hooks, athletic solos; the same use of harmony and rhythm as tools of joyous defiance.
There are things that set “Love in Wartime” apart from its antecedents—the chief of these being the lyrics, which are woven through with uncanny insight and ingenuity. Seventies pop-rock didn’t infuse the air waves with too many couplets like “We are not made from metals hammered / We are lightning, clay and grammar,” or extravagant imagery like, “I feel caverns underneath my feet / Rivers dark and rivers fleet / So I roll and so I wind / I slip and I weave and I duck and I dive / That’s all.”
The only problem with lyrics of this caliber is that they risk getting lost in the sheer sensual assault of the musicianship. Among the prior age’s lyric heavyweights, Joni Mitchell solved the problem by keeping her arrangements spare enough to set her poetry in high relief; Leonard Cohen by subjugating the music to the words from the get-go. (Listen again to “Hallelujah”: the sophistication is all in the text, the music being no more complex than a lullabye.) There are moments in “Love in Wartime” when you have to refer to the lyrics sheet to confirm what you’re hearing. But it’s extravagantly worth the effort.
Husband-and-wife team JT Nero and Allison Russell wrote all the album’s material, which forms a folk-pop suite. It describes an arc of striving against discouragement (“Sun is older / Than you are / Younger too / Younger still by far / Oh brother / That’s a fact / So you play for keeps / You do not take love back”) and moving on into discovery (“Pain will come and pain will go / Keep it moving down the line / Namaste my Derecho / Come on, rock me in my time”). Throughout, Nero’s gravelly vocals are irresistibly urgent, while Russell’s uncannily supple instrument provides nearly every other required texture. In the title tune—one of the album’s highlights—there’s a little catch in her voice that’s like a cool, clear pool; you fall into it every time, and with something like relief and release.
As I said: it’s an extraordinary album… and a triumphant response to a time of arrogance, rancor and division. Which is not to limit its merits to the merely sociopolitical; by far the greatest attraction for me is that “Love in Wartime” will be shedding its life-affirming transcendence long after the current crisis has settled into a malevolent memory.
* Since writing the first draft of review, I’ve learned that Nero and Russell now live in Nashville, and thus can’t strictly be considered a local band. But Birds of Chicago was formed right here, and unless they change the name I’m taking that as a testament of belonging. Also, “Love in Wartime” was recorded here, at Steve Albini’s studio. And if any other supporting argument is required, consider this yearning, euphoric passage from the song “Travelers”: “Fullerton Street / Fullerton / Look how young you’ve grown to be / All these children! / You wear them well / They cling to your robes / They’re under your spell.” (And yes, I know it’s really Fullerton Avenue; but this isn’t an album over which to split hairs.)
“Love in Wartime” is available for purchase or download through the usual channels, including Birds of Chicago’s website. (Robert Rodi, New City Music, 28 May 2018; https://music.newcity.com/2018/05/28/winged-victory-a-review-of-birds-of-chicagos-life-in-wartime/)
Not just in a titular sense, the Birds of Chicago’s latest album release has love as its subject matter running like a golden thread throughout the record—Allison Russell, the lead singer, reported to have said recently that any act of love is akin to “an act of bravery” in such troubled times. Founded in Chicago in 2012, but now based in Nashville, this musical collective centred on the husband and wife duo of Allison Rogers and JT Nero, have been quietly but assuredly building a fan base since, and Love In Wartime is essentially a companion piece to their previous EP, American Flowers, released last year, the latter more country and fiddle influenced, and apparently not best suited to the mood of the new record, which is why it merited its own release.
Setting out their stall of recording an album which listeners can dance to is something they achieve with ease—pretty much right from the get go with “Never Go Back.” It’s that soulful and funky it could be something recorded by the Brand New Heavies. Indeed, so hard to pigeonhole are Birds of Chicago that they achieve a successful melange of soul, rock, roots, blues-gospel and jazz funk across a raft of different songs on Love in Wartime, with particular styles winning out on individual tunes. Certain songs such as the title track and “Try” are more balladic and thoughtful, while first single from the album, “Roll Away,” with its handclaps, and the bass heavy “Derecho,” are more uptempo in feel.
All the while the contrasting and alternating vocal styles of Russell and Nero are a highlight, particularly on the mid-paced ‘Lodestar’ which always threatens to burst into life but never fully takes flight. That’s not intended as a criticism. The fact it only thrums along without ever reaching the higher gear it always appears to have the potential for is just part of the creative tension which adds to the song’s intrigue.
The chemistry and understanding shared by the joint lead vocalists is demonstrated to greatest effect on the extended work out both singers get on “Try,”and the gorgeously affecting, “Superlover,” its light banjo introduction and mellow vibe perfectly offset by the soaring and swooping vocal prowess of Russell in particular: “Tears of rage, tears of grief / From Inglewood to Nairobi / We need a super love.”
If nothing else on the album truly scales the heights reached by “Superlover,” then there’s still much to credit this love and life-affirming third major release. It’s also a record whose songs appear designed to fully flourish in a live setting—very much like the flowers described in “Lodestar”: “Now you’re fissile, opening like primroses reaching for the sun.” (Mark Underwood, Americana UK, 21 May 2018; https://americana-uk.com/birds-of-chicago-love-in-wartime-signature-sounds-2018)

MUSICIANS:
Allison Russell: vocals, clarinet, banjo
JT Nero AKA Jeremy Lindsay: vocals, acoustic guitar
Christopher Merrill: bass
Nick Chambers: drums, vocals
Joel Schwartz: lead electric guitar
Drew Lindsay: piano, keys
Dan Abu Absi: rhythm electric, acoustic guitar
Javier Saume-Mazzei: percussion
Kelly Hogan and Nora O’Connor: harmony vocals (2, 3, 4, 9)
Produced by Luther Dickinson* and JT Nero
*The founder of North Mississippi Allstars