Devendra Banhart
Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon

The kid has become a man. He’s started using hair conditioner, hangs out with the right crowd, evidently a good stylist among them, has (had) a stunning girlfriend, and even walked the Cannes red carpet. He’s also made enough money to record albums with more than just voice and guitar, and many ideas (the kind that, alas, money can’t buy!).

This “Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon” is evidently an ambitious album, complex and rich in sounds, references, ideas that are very distant from each other, different from what we’re used to, which surely made more than a few people turn up their noses. In fact, there are a number of things that have been left behind; first of all, the gift of synthesis (there are tracks that last eight minutes!), that vibrato singing that resembled the vagabond who hops on steam trains from the 1920s, and certain intimate/minimalist atmospheres of the first albums that had a huge charm. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on taste, and—here comes an obvious statement—it’s always better for an artist to seek new directions rather than endlessly retracing the same patterns.

There are so many new things in this record. First of all, the sounds are simply fabulous. I still don’t know how they managed it (recording and mastering all in analog? Vintage equipment? Or very simply, a truckload of money?), but everything sounds beautiful, the voices, the guitars, the percussion: the references are, for a change, the usual 60s, but the album still sounds modern, and warm, and enchanting. Then the richness, not only of the sounds but also in composition: there are traces of tropicalism (“Samba Vexillografica”, one of the best tracks on the album), a soft reggae (“the other woman”), even a real gospel (“Saved”, the title doesn’t lie), an infinite psychedelic dilation (“Seahorse”), some melancholic piano ballads (“I remember”), and others more ethereal and impalpable (“Freely” and “Seaside”). The past is always the strongest reference, so we witness the resurrection of T-Rex in the unusual rock piece “Tonada Yanomaminista”, the revival of Prince's early electric funk in “Lover” (but Devendra is a bit more appealing when he sings: “I wanna mesmerize your ass”) and, naturally, the ghost of Donovan, of Nick Drake, and often of the Doors, everywhere.

Since Devendra simply can’t take himself seriously (thankfully, it’s definitely a good idea), he pulls a Burt Bacharach-style piece out of the hat (“So long old beam”) as well as “Shabop Shalom”, which is, yes, a little idiotic, but delightful (“Honey, when it comes to love/There’s a fire in the deep bend of my heart/Givin’ me the heeby-geebys”). Not missing is a 60s conga/salsa, absolutely irresistible (yes, even this is a bit idiotic) “Carmensita”, accompanied by an absolutely hilarious and absurd video clip.

Does all this succeed in really making the album work? Partly no. At some moments, there’s really too much, it’s too grandiloquent, too pretentious, or just too-much-too-much and sometimes a bit formulaic; it works more on gimmicks than on inspirations and the “ah, how funny, he’s even putting in monkey sounds” prevails over “this melody is beautiful and leaves me in a daze.” And then, the real problem is the length: in over an hour of listening, attention wanes, boredom rises and apart from some thrilling episodes, it cannot be said to be a completely successful work.