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Silver Jews have been around in various forms for 15 years, since leader David Berman first hooked up with Steve Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich, and ‘Tanglewood Numbers’ brings them back together for the Silver Jews’ best album since 1998’s classic ‘American Water’. It’s full of energy and immediacy, but – as befitting a poet - has plenty of deeps too.
The album is influenced by Pavement and alt-country (Berman now lives in Nashville) without being too out-of-pocket to either of them. ‘Punks In The Beerlight’ has a poppy edge to its slightly dark theme while ‘Animal Shapes’ is playful daydreaming from David and Cassie Berman. Berman’s guests also shine, from the Pavement-ish guitar soloing on ‘Sometimes A Pony Gets Depressed’ to Paz Lenchantin’s haunting violin on the country-folk ‘The Poor, The Fair and The Good’.
Unlike most records, you’re constantly hooked by clever country-aping song titles like ‘How Can I Love You If You Won’t Lie Down’ and lines as perfect as “later I come to find/ life is sweeter than Jewish wine” (‘Sleeping Is The Only Love’). ‘The Farmer’s Hotel’ is a brilliant seven-minute poem set to music about some haunted establishment whose awfulness is always suggested, never spelled out. Only Nick Cave, in my recollection, has painted such a vivid word-picture (‘O’Malley’s Bar’) anytime recently. The album ends with ‘There Is A Place’ a dark tale about depression that takes on a darker hue when you recall Berman’s near suicide. Given its theme, it couldn’t go anywhere else but last on the album and is somewhat discordant and unsettling but it contains a hopeful note: “there is a place past the blues I never want to see again”.
The album has a couple of dimensions more than your regular record; if it’s pop you want, it’ll give that up to you easily; Pavement-type noodling, you’re sure to discover; but humour, poetry, acute observation all nest there too, a combination that makes it as potentially classic an album as ‘American Water’ has rightfully become.
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