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Sound Advice: Doug Paisley
Every Tuesday, Torontoist scours record store shelves in search of the city’s most notable new releases and brings you the best—or sometimes just the biggest—of what we’ve heard in Sound Advice.
With his solid, sentimental voice and sleepy, soft pick-strum, Doug Paisley is a country folk dream. The nine tracks that make up his new self-titled album, out on New York’s No Quarter Records (look alive, Canada), come straight outta Toronto but sound like Nashville. Not the big shiny Nashville of that other Paisley, but the lap steel, sharp harmonies, and slow, sad moan from the wise old soul of country’s roots. Even his mustache seems legit.
A lot of lamenting fills Paisley’s songs, but like many other Canadians (or just everyone) lately, Paisley shares the relief as the so-called saviour takes the wheel south of the border; in “Take Me With You,” he can’t help but absorb our closest geographical neighbours’ recent years of woes, the state having clung dangerously to the church (“Our kingdom has grown unjust/we have paid so for our trust”), but now, watching with the rest of the world, ready to be led out of the good/evil paradox nightmare (“Wash our hands in the fire/even guilt must expire/take me with you”). With his observational world-worn weariness, Paisley easily finds a place among the ranks of Canadian folkies musing on the drab workings of Americana.
At times, Paisley transcends the permeating drawl and instead evokes the autumnal hush of Nick Drake (album standout “Wide Open Plain”) or the fading late summer shimmer of The Band (“What About Us”). Intimacy has been lauded of late, with Bon Iver and Bonnie “Prince” Billy (who, coincidentally [serendipitously?], Paisley has toured with) becoming critics’ darlings, and while Paisley differs both sonically and stylistically, his pared-down transparency is what will (hopefully) bring him the same esteem on this year’s lists. The songs are quiet, clean, and close, and though melancholic on the surface, the elation that comes from finding an understanding and peace with the personal moments in life shines through. These are the kinds of songs that make timeless folklore of love, loneliness, and mortality.