Staggering out of the Mojave Desert like a man who’s seen the light in the endless darkness, Jay Buchanan’s first solo album is a remarkable journey through soul music, country rock, southern gothic and gospel. He might still pose for a promo photo in front of a once thriving gold mine while wearing a lobster-pink suit that would make Brandon Flowers blanche, but his new album Weapons Of Beauty is as captivating and contrary as the image of a man in a tailored suit standing alone in the deserted wilderness might suggest.
The solitary figure staggering out of the desert isn’t a metaphor, either. Buchanan – possibly in the grip of some mid-life existential angst – really did take himself off to a bunker in the Mojave Desert with a gas generator and those self-same forsaken gold mines for company to write the songs that make up the heart of this album.
It must be hard to get away from yourself when you’re alone in the desert, but that kind of enforced introspection has given this record such heart. Forget the wailing white man’s blues that often makes up his day job, this is the sort of jumping-off point that Robert Plant pursued after he’d finally closed the door on Led Zeppelin.
“As music continues to be choked out by technology, I wanted to draw pictures in the dirt,” says Buchanan – probably while making sure not to get any on his tailored trews as he said so.
Although it’s easy to mock and fun to do so, there’s no denying the lustre and passion in these songs. A case in point is the blistering call-to-arms, preacher-man fire-and-brimstone sermon True Black. Elsewhere, Tumbleweeds leans towards a darker Ryan Adams or brooding Jason Isbell setting, pinned against a vast Cormac McCarthy landscape where you’re glad of the solitude, as who really knows what’s sitting out there in the shadows?
The aforementioned latter-day Robert Plant comes thrumming through in the roiling Deep Swimming, while the smoky Dance Me To The End Of Love conjures up woozy, Stones-like ghosts, while the keening, clear-eyed The Great Divide makes you think of a strident Tom Petty and his Heartbreakers. That said, it’s all Buchanan, even if he is tipping his (handmade) hat to the greats. His blistering, grandstanding, once-in-a-lifetime vocal on the title track will always remind you whose record this really is.
