Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains (2019)

"Well I don't really like talking to myself, but someone's got to say it, hell..." You know this voice. An old friend has returned. It was some years back that you dropped the needle on the record and heard it say, "No, I don't really wanna die..." Like so many lines you couldn't possibly have guessed the finish to, it's now among the flat natural-born good-timin' faves that you sing along with in the jukebox inside your head. It's loaded up there along with at least a couple dozen others from Silver Jews, whose classic run was made somehow finite in 2009, when the voice himself, David Berman, announced his retirement from music. Ten years have come and gone since then. Where the time goes, we do not know. What do they say about old songwriters? We don't know that one either, okay? We're not good with jokes - we're just glad that there's always more songs to be written and sung. That's what raised up Purple Mountains for all of us, after all. Yes, Purple Mountains is the new nom-de-rock of David Berman. Purple Mountains is also the name of what will be known as one of his greatest albums - full of double-jointed wit and wisdom, up to the neck in his special recipe of handcrafted country-rock joys and sorrows that sing legendary in cracked and broken hearts.