A renaissance man puts you to sleep

On paper, this could be great. Pokey LaFarge’s latest record, In the Blossom of Their Shade, is a mixture of all the old-school genres that dominated before rock swept them away, ranging from ragtime and swing to jazz and Appalachian folk. The problem with mixing that many ideas together is that they might end up fighting for space and compromising their best traits in the pursuit of cohesion. Sadly, that seems to be the fate of LaFarge’s eighth and easily worst album to date. Incohesive, boring and lacking the charm of his previous work, it’s baffling how little it offers in comparison to his best releases.

One of the biggest problems is LaFarge himself, as he gives a shockingly anonymous performance. He does not have the gruff of a bluesman, the bassy presence of a crooner, or the smoothness of an old-school vocal pop or country Neopolitan star. His default vocal tone is weedy and undignified, and the blown-out production and filters chosen on “Fine to Me,” “Killing Time” and “Yo-Yo” don’t give him personality so much as they screw with any attempt to set a consistent mood.

About halfway through the record, he begins to play to his greatest strength: sounding creepy. Still, problems abound. The lyrics of “To Love or Be Alone” are far too morbid for an instrumental this peppy, and the background vocals don’t have the sort of menace needed to support lines like “it’s in our nature to cheat, and also to kill.”  

LaFarge almost makes it work by sounding coldly detached and unsettling. However, he immediately ditches this strategy in favor of the world-weariness of the next song, “Long for the Heaven I Seek.” Even as his backing vocals boast a lot of gospel-style soul, he can’t tap into that same richness to give the title statement any weight. The wild, howling passion he brought to cuts from Riverboat Soul like “Sweet Potato Blues” is nowhere to be seen.

The instrumentation takes a much more subdued route as well. There’s none of the swelling brass of Something in the Water or the sweet harmonica of One Town at a Time. His ramshackle charm is traded in for something more polished and hi-fi, which sounds incongruous with his vocals. The music never slips into a rollicking groove, which LaFarge was usually good at riding, or even an old-school swinging cadence. These are easily some of his most forgettable compositions yet. Something in the Water, even at its most irritatingly retro, at least had color to it.

“Rotterdam” is the most enjoyable overall song with an almost surf-rock, psychedelic atmosphere set by the pedal steel and organ as he outlines his love of the Dutch city and what it stands for. “Mi Ideal” features some appealing acoustic guitar work, and “Drink of You” is a competently put together, if unadventurous, country song. Outside of these, the album glides along at a slow pace with little color or jot. Yes, LaFarge’s music sometimes came off as nostalgia-bait, but he totally owned those genres of yore and harnessed a clear passion that helped him make some good albums. In The Blossom of the Shade just doesn’t exhibit that same level of passion, and it never quite blossoms so much as it withers and wilts.