"Painted Shield" a new album by Stone Gossard and Mason Jennings

demetrios

demetrios

https://youtu.be/vTCZuHc96do?si=Lzj05O0pcuTeBTIm

demetrios

https://www.lonesomehighway.com/music-reviews

Mason Jennings Magnifier Loosegrove

A very stripped down album from the prolific Mason Jennings who delivers eight acoustic songs played on guitar and piano. It’s the twentieth album in the career of this fine songwriter and his debut album first announced him back in 1997. Based in Minneapolis Jennings has developed a musical partnership with Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam fame. Gossard has produced a number of previous albums for Jennings and they also play in a side project together called Painted Shield that has released three albums to date.

The album starts with Joy In the Face Of It All and Jennings is celebrating mother nature and the quiet constancy that it represents in terms of hope. Dreams and living in the light of each day are also part of Jennings being able to ‘Laugh in the face of it all.’ It’s a homespun philosophy of fear nothing. Feathers, Blood, and Bone channels a sense of mystery and asks that any hidden force makes itself known to assist in the struggles that life presents. There is so much that we take on good faith and in the hope that things will work out over time.

The song Don’t Change is a prayer to the enduring power of love and the relationship with his wife that brings such a sense of solace and security. Castles is much about childhood and the freedom to dream, in spite of what the reality of the world may have been enduring ‘Children take their sorrow and turn it into light.’ Blood Red Sun is something of a departure in that it tracks the life of an outlaw on the run. Perhaps it’s written as a metaphor for the way in which we try to hide away from the consequences of our actions as a society. The use of snare drum adds a heavy beat as the stark reality of a reckoning beckons; it could be the reality of global warming in the image of a blood red sun?

Changing the mood is Little Yellow Flowers even if it places the singer by the sea feeling lonely over the absence of a girl from his past. Fingerstyle acoustic guitar and piano ease the pain felt . Our World Is Ending (And She Don’t Care) is a loss of hope in the way the earth is turning, expectations dashed and dreams lost. Perhaps the planet has given up on humankind, maybe it’s a loved one that is running low on faith for the future, or it could well be our belief in a deity above who has turned her back on us and our incessant squabbling – God depicted as a woman?

It’s always nice to have different interpretations on song meanings, whether they were written as simple fragments of thought or indeed deeper meaning vignettes on life. The final song is Seasons and again there is a sense of drifting aimless ‘I feel numb and overwhelmed, afraid of what’s in store.’ In trying to save our planet maybe the song cycle returns to the opening track and we realise that we have to indeed ‘strive for joy in the face of it all.’ An intriguing and insightful album, gentle yet strong in the vulnerability displayed. Certainly worthy of your time and delivering great songcraft.

demetrios

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2iFc5Fd6yY4