Albums by this artist

Emoh (2005)

Features

Un-Natural One:
Published October 22, 2002

Lou Barlow

Emoh

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» JEFF GRAY | STAFF WRITER

Lou Barlow Emoh Merge, 2005 RiYL: Bright Eyes, Eels, Beck's Sea Change

Lou Barlow's first real solo album, Emoh, is poorly named. It is not emo, as much as it sounds like it should be when you speak the title. It has the right tempo and tone for emo, but not nearly enough self-importance or self-indulgence. Emoh is also not depressing, a surprise decision for the composer of two decades of downer tunes for outfits like Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, and the Folk Implosion. Lyrically, Emoh's near-misses are hopeful, its setbacks non-fatal, its depression conquerable, its runaway housecats returned to the family domicile. "Love will find a way, just give it time," for christ's sake.

It's also not lo-fi, at least for the most part, a slap in the face to another Barlow and Sebadoh tradition. While the dominant sounds are Barlow's voice and acoustic guitar, even when that combination is left unaccompanied, the sound is warm and full. Emoh's producers filled out its simpler tracks with a broad range of percussion: a rumbling trash can on "If I Could," soft beat-boxing on "Home" and good old hand-clapping on "The Ballad Of Daykitty."

Emoh is a folk album, and a good one, delivered with restraint and skill. Its name, of course, is "home" spelled backwards, and home in Barlow's Emoh might be a little scrambled, it might even be backwards, but it's still there and it's still comforting. That's a nice sentiment, but an unimpressive play on words, and "emoh" might well be a step back as a knowing homonym or a cynical pun for the guy who named two of his other records Harmacy and Smash Your Head On The Punk Rock. That's okay, though. Emoh is neither knowing nor cynical.

A handful of its tracks are, well, dull, notably the military dirge "Morning's After Me" and "Imagined Life," in which both rhythm and melody were regrettably removed from the verses. These songs are the exceptions, though, as most of Barlow's new tunes are livened up with splices of deftly muffled electric-guitar fills ("Holding Back The Year") or "Here Comes the Sun"-like simple acoustic beauty ("Puzzle").

Even where the instrumentation is unspectacular, Emoh's tunes are worthwhile for their unique and amusing lyrics. Barlow makes sure that Emoh isn't just plain old folk music with the positively blasphemous "Mary," a song that begins "Immaculate conception, yeah right / Crazy Mary, good that you lied" and doesn't do anything else to endear itself to literal readers of the New Testament in its subsequent three minutes. "The Ballad Of Daykitty" is just as absurd (if written in the sacrilegious vein of "Mary", perhaps it would have been subtitled "Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Cat"), but still manages to warm the heart with its happy ending.

The lyrics on "Caterpillar Girl" aren't as obviously quirky, but they may be the album's best, and the song's softly swinging bass lines make it Emoh's finest track. Barlow coaxes his caterpillar girl out of her cocoon, then cautions her to "Look out, the birds / like me, they want you now." Such are the risks of breaking out into the light.

JEFF GRAY | Jeff Gray used to be an important mover and shaker in Chicago, but gave all that up to live on a beach in rural Hawaii. You'll notice him if you're there, he's the one who's very tall and a little bit sunburned. His musical tastes tend towards the mainstream -- Phish, Radiohead, The Strokes -- but he'll argue to the death that those bands are mainstream because they're 100% awesome. Jeff's always on the lookout for the next great pop song, tidbits about Michigan football, and 80's action movies on cable.