Chris Brokaw - Puritan (2021)

The ever-resourceful and chameleonic Chris Brokaw returns satisfyingly with his first songs-based solo long player since 2012
It’s hard not to introduce the veteran Chris Brokaw to the still-uninitiated without detailing at least some of his storied CV – which includes stints in Codeine, Come, Pullman, Consonant, The New Year, Dirt Music and Charnel Ground alongside collaborative engagements with Geoff Farina, Steve Wynn, Evan Dando, Thurston Moore, Willard Grant Conspiracy and many more. That’s before you even get to his on/off/on solo career.

His more solitary roaming has in itself followed an eclectic trajectory, flipping between intrepid instrumental art-rock (2001’s striking one-man debut Red Cities), acoustic troubadour deconstructions (2003’s wonderful Wandering as Water), imaginative 12-string explorations (2009’s VDSQ – Solo Acoustic Volume Three), post-rock schooled experimentation (such as 2015’s The Periscope Twins), numerous film soundtracks, wordless classical guitar reinterpretations of Prince and David Bowie standards (2017’s The Hand That Wrote This Letter) and chamber-jazz-tinged meditations (2019’s End of the Night). It’s some time though, since Brokaw’s sole-trader snaking around settled into his self-described ‘rock band’ mode (as assumed across 2005’s Incredible Love and 2012’s Gambler’s Ecstasy LPs) but here it is – at last – in the shape of the benevolently potent Puritan.

With Brokaw mainly up front on vocals/guitar backed by Dave Carlson (bass) and erstwhile Drop Nineteens member Pete Koeplin (drums) as well as three guest singers, the album is an adroit exercise in reacquainting with and expanding upon Brokaw’s formative roots. In turns both a rousing and reflective travelogue-themed affair, Puritan is infused equally with the cruising driving speed and the lonesome motel moods of a long open road trip.

Giving the record its biggest momentum then is a string of stirring power-trio pieces. These peel out in the shape of the angular churning Chavez-like opening titular track; the surging Sonic Youth-meets-Eleventh Dream Day sprawl of “The Heart of Human Trafficking”; the dense roiling “Periscope Kids”; and the stomping Black Sabbath-slanted voice-free workout of “Report to an Academy”. While these well-amplified cuts alone mark out Puritan as a solid statement, five remaining recordings with more ruminative temperaments cement its status as one of Brokaw’s sturdiest self-billed releases to date.

Hence, the yearning “Depending” displays an affecting warmth in its serenely-paced heartbreak; “I’m the Only One” stretches out as a languid cosmic Americana duet with Claudia Groom (formerly of the Seattle band Juned) laced with an unapologetically romantic streak; and the succinct “I Can’t Sleep” (another co-ed voice hook-up, with Tricia Adelmann of Boston band Possum) glides along with a strong scent of melodic dissonance akin to Panic On-era Madder Rose.

However, a pair of pieces featuring erstwhile Come co-leader Thalia Zedek – put to tape in Texas during a stop-off on a pre-Covid-19 duo tour – should provide the biggest draw for long-time aficionados of the two old hands. For the sparse aching majesty of “The Bragging Rights” Zedek takes to the mic alone atop overlapping acoustic and electric guitars, whilst in the coda to the redemptive closing cover of Karl Hendricks’ “The Night Has No Eyes” she adds a remarkably tender postscript to Brokaw’s main vocal.

Arguably, the overriding strength of Puritan comes from the fact that it equitably rewards loyalists as well as late-comers, with an ease that belies any signs of creative fatigue that might be expected after over three decades in the same chosen trade. Hopefully though, we won’t have to wait quite so long again for Chris Brokaw to deliver a sequel that swims in the same song-focused tributaries.