Melancholic, Art Rock, Americana
From the first strums of guitar and buzzes of static, blues-rock artist Jaye Jayle’s newest album is thick with melancholia. Though titled Don’t Let Your Love Life Get You Down, the album embodies the opposite, moving from song to song in a slow, gritty combination of psychedelia and Americana. Jaye Jayle is the solo project of Louisville’s Evan Patterson, an artist best known for his post-hardcore band Young Widows. This musical basis can be clearly heard in his new record; though stripped of its heaviness and slowed to a blues tempo, Love Life sinks into the dark waters of Patterson’s post-hardcore home territory to create a dreamy, immersive soundscape of despair.
Despite its length – only eight songs in total – Love Life feels long. Each track of the album churns itself into a fit, pulsing into darkness and relenting into moments of light. Individual instruments at times lose themselves in the thrum of the music, art rock guitar fuzzing out over low-pitched synth effects and hollow drums. Songs like “The Party of Redemption” have an almost post-punk sound, something reminiscent of Joy Division in the layering of deep male vocals over a black-painted backdrop.
Despite these influences, however, the album maintains a quintessentially country sound. The vocals soften and harden as Patterson traverses gospel harmonies in “That Snake Bite,” the repeated refrain of “my brother” harkening back to more traditional music of the genre. Psychedelic and blues elements blend into something dark and trancelike, at once familiar and exotic, lyrics calling to mind both Holy Rollers and snake charmers. Likewise, Southern-accented vocals waver through in “Black Diamonds and Bad Apples,” a track that sounds a little like a blues song played underwater, broken up in the middle by a high siren of a guitar solo.
It may be unsurprising to learn that Love Life was written after Patterson’s divorce from singer-songwriter Emma Ruth Rundle. The album’s lyrics are desperate for a chance at redemption, telling stories about walking into rivers and hoping to emerge cleansed. “Waiting for the Life” has a slowness almost reminiscent of bands like Cigarettes After Sex – what sets it apart, however, is that there’s no real romance in Patterson’s lyrics, singing as a man post-heartbreak instead of one still in the throes of love.
“The Florist” begs for closeness, a request made spine-chilling by the gritty, unhinged quality to Patterson’s voice, whispers murmuring over the chorus, berating his selfishness. In “Tell Me Live,” the singer searches for someone to keep him afloat within his own sorrow, voice echoing over itself as though trying desperately to answer its own pleas. Even within this bluesy void, there are moments of surprising beauty: the guitar solo in “Waiting for the Life,” soaring into transcendence before falling back into an alarm-affected void of echoes; the high, eerie vocals of collaborator Bonnie Prince Billy on the final track, “When We Are Dogs,” set to a woodwind accompaniment in a kind of swaying, heartsick prettiness.
While seldom varying in tone or theme, Don’t Let Your Love Life Get You Down remains a strong listen throughout. Propelled by its constant, pulsing melancholy, echoing drums pull listeners from song to song beneath layers of fuzzy blues guitar. Giving its audience a cutting taste of rock bottom, Patterson invites listeners to sit inside his sorrow until even the darkness becomes comforting, having conversations with echoes and getting blackout drunk on honey whiskey.
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