Two years ago Jay Farrar revived Son Volt with a retuned crew and offered up Okemah and the Melody of Riot. It was a politicized look back to his earlier guitar driven, plugged-in troubador sound and offered a glimmer of hope to this dyed in the wool fan for the return of insurgent country's oaken heart and bared teeth. I played The Search with these same high hopes - and was immediately deflated. The album leads off with "Slow Hearse," a piano scale with psychish Beatles guitar decorations over the lyric "Feels like driving 'round in a slow hearse" repeated like a mantra. Okay, intro track, skip it. Track two starts with a flat take on Memphis horns and proves, like most of the album, to be unexciting, overly verbose and lost in its own philosophy. Disappointing to say the least, especially considering Farrar's excellent work with Anders Parker (Varnaline) as Gob Iron.
I try to be charitable and Farrar's place in my musical pantheon was cemented long ago with No Depression and again with Trace so I tried The Search a few times and it's not a bad album. It's just not a very good one either. "Action" almost gets it right with a nod to swampy rhythms and growling organs but Farrar's always appealing, laid back tenor hits a pitch too sincere and worried to really rock. A few tunes make the cut for a passable mid-tempo alt-rock background shuffle but nothing quite manages to percolate to the surface. Maybe it's one of those things that needs time to settle in or find some sort of personal resonance. I'm still a fan, just not of this album. Not yet anyway.
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