In an early episode of Nashville (shut up, yes, I mention it at least once a week and you’ll have to get used to it), Avery Barkley describes his music as “cerebral alt-country” and you have to wonder if he’s just pulling words out of his ass.
My theory is whoever wrote that dialog had a sneak peek at Englishman’s Unsafe & Sound. There’s no denying this is a weird-ass album.
Unsafe & Found is unquestionably a post-9/11 album. It’s about the monsters — real or imagined — that haunt our everyday existence: loneliness, mortality, obsolescence. It may not be the music that cheers you up, but it will be the album to strengthen your existentialist meditations. Strangely enough, the album does not leave me feeling cold and afraid. The strange warmth provided by the strings in “Kids & Bipolars” is a solid example of this dynamic: the music itself is familiar and comforting, but what Englishman says is way more important than how they make you feel.