When life pushes one to the limits, there's nothing like some steady-rolling, bluesy classic rock to help encourage you to get back on your feet. It's even better if you can write it, and that's exactly what Dewey Kincade and The Navigators accomplish on their new record, The Dark Ages.
The title -- The Dark Ages -- refers to Kincade's struggles to make a decent life in Louisville, Kentucky. A songwriter since the late nineties, he's been through life's ups and downs from surviving cancer, the chaotic soul-sucking of pursuing a career in New York City, and most recently, the journey of raising a family after moving away.
His backing band, The Navigators, has taken many different forms along the way, becoming the biggest and most diverse version yet for this new record. Most significant is the space the LP finds itself in. The album balances the personal with the political, bringing wider issues about modern life into the context of Kincade's personal struggles with balancing parenthood with musicianship. Though the album is releasing a few years after his return from "retirement," the album feels like an act of renewal.
Kicking off the 14-track album is "Tied to the Rhythm," a song that aims to introduce the listener to the record's wide variety of influences while also conveying the urgency of Kincade's everyday life.
Leading the charge is the drive of guitar and drums, but the song switches gears once it adds some seriously funky keyboard riffs into the mix. This leads to brass sections and country-tinged background vocals that all work to support the group's own impressively animated vocal delivery. The song feels like a kind of rebirth because of how uniquely grand the arrangements are in comparison to Kincade's past work. On top of all this comes the lyricism that crowns the whole song with the worries of never having enough time. "Night, turning into the day, turning into the month, turning into the year!" sings Kincade. He declares that to live in The Dark Ages means to live in a time where you can never keep up.
The record takes a turn toward societal commentary on another notable track, "You Don't Know (What You Think You Know)."
This song balances the personal with the political, being a song that could be read as an expression of both the tumultuous fight to make sense of one's personal life, and also the sea of fake information that plagues The Age of Information. Kincade begins by looking at the big picture, singing about topics from bewildering scientific research on Vitamin A, to the free-market lotto. But then he pulls in his own perspective, singing "I don't need a war / I don't need to get rich / I just need a world where I can raise my kids." By this point in the album, The Dark Ages grows ever more complex, becoming a symbol for his personal struggles and also the societal struggle to feel secure in an increasingly perplexing world.
If "You Don't Know" is a lament of an uncertain future, "My Mistress' Eyes" is an illuminating recontextualization of the past.
Here, the band takes an interesting risk in turning Shakespeare's "Sonnett 130" into a southern rock song. The result is as multi-layered as many of the record's best moments, merging Shakespeare's challenging of overly romanticized love sonnets with the album's themes of populism and common-place struggle. It shifts the meaning of Shakespeare by re-affirming the poem's themes of love over shallow pleasure within The Dark Ages Kincade sings about. When Kincaide sings "I love to hear her speak / Tet well I know / That music hath a far more / Pleasing sound," the words take on a new, more literal meaning.
Lastly, it would be a serious disservice not to mention the LP's closer, "Up Around the Bend."
This song is some full-blooded, two-fisted swamp rock. The thumping riffs and soulful chorus exude this genre more than any other song on the record. It's also one of the most beautifully arranged and produced songs on the album.
The track features a lot of layered background vocals from The Navigators. They capture the emotion of the song well and are mixed into audio perfection by Kincade's longtime, Grammy-nominated producer Andrew Lee. The song also ties up the record's themes by being a last push toward the light to end his "dark age." "Up around the bend / We're gonna finally see," he sings, talking about witnessing light once again.
Dewey Kincade has been through the ringer and forced to put music on the backburner for a bit, but he's still rolling "'round the bend." In the process, he hopes to shine a little light in all of our personal "dark ages."
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