The Jayhawks - XOXO (Limited Edition) (2020)

Gary Louris has never been the only songwriter or vocalist in the Jayhawks. He shared those duties with Marc Olson in their early years (and on their twin classics, 1992’s Hollywood Town Hall and 1995’s Tomorrow the Green Grass), and even after he became the group’s sole leader with 1997’s Sound of Lies, he was hardly the only voice in the band. Still, it would be a bit silly to suggest Louris hasn’t been the dominant figure in the Jayhawks since Olson left; nor would it be unreasonable to say his talented bandmates were often playing second fiddle to him. 2020’s XOXO is a bold effort to change that. For the first time in the group’s history, all four members of the Jayhawks (Louris on guitar, Marc Perlman on bass, Karen Grotberg on keyboards, Tim O'Reagan on drums) contributed to the project as songwriters and lead vocalists. For the most part, this doesn’t make for a radically different Jayhawks album. “This Forgotten Town” sounds exactly the way you’d expect it to with that title from this band. The sweet ache of Grotberg’s melodies and voice on “Ruby” and “Across My Field” are a perfect fit for the Jayhawks, and Perlman’s “Down to the Farm” is effective in its stark, moody simplicity. But XOXO does out Tim O’Reagan as the secret rock & roll animal of the group: there’s a scrappy swagger to “Dogtown Days” and “Society Pages” that’s part garage punk and part vintage glam, and hearing the Jayhawks kicking out these kinds of jams so convincingly is a pretty pleasant surprise. (“Looking Up Your Number” shows that O’Reagan is also capable of penning gentle acoustic numbers more closely reflecting the band’s trademark sound.) If O’Reagan’s songs are the ones that push the Jayhawks’ envelope the furthest on XOXO, overall the album has the feel of a band willing to experiment, confident enough in the talents of the four members to allow them to toss ideas against the wall and take a chance on whatever happens to stick. Given that these musicians have been working together for the better part of 25 years, it should come as no surprise that XOXO still feels like a Jayhawks album, but while conventional wisdom in rock history tells us a band is running short on ideas when they start letting the drummer write more songs, in this case it means they’re coming up with new ideas that are working well, and that’s welcome news.