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To look at Phosphorescent Blues as a mere expansion of the themes that made Brazos’ debut EP, A City Just As Tall, so successful might be the best critical approach, but it would hardly do justice to the completeness and solidarity that characterize the success of the new release as a true album. Suffice it to say then, if you liked A City Just As Tall, fear not - you’ll love Phosphorescent Blues. But give the album a chance to work new and different angles, like soft piano interludes and expanded attention to textures, and you’ll find the interplay of themes and textures, both lyrically and musically, are a stunning accomplishment unto their own.
Our introduction to the album comes by way of crowd noise that’s soon subtly supplemented with a bass guitar, some snapping, a pan flute, and the equally subtle voice of Martin Crane. A City Just As Tall, you’ll remember, launched into a thunderously bright arrangement of guitar harmonics and syncopated melodies by way of introduction on “Mary Jo”; yet the understated introduction on Phosphorescent Blues is entirely more fitting of the masterful exercise in musical texture that follows. Past the buildup in opener “My Buddy” lies the familiar toms-and-bass-driven groove of “Kid,” here rounded out with the odd background vocal calls and, building into the chorus, a guitar that captures all the glorious vintage “crunch” anyone could ever ask for.
“Avignon” is the first real standout on the album (and believe me, it’s hard to standout against a backdrop this enjoyable), with a slow, tight arrangement that would be suited for jazz if it weren’t for the electric piano in the center. The key to this song (indicative of the whole album, really) is the added texture by the auxiliary instruments - in this case the “Max Roach” approach to drumming that brings the brassy clang of cymbals in to clash with the rumbling toms and droning guitars - but also the interworking of textures within the song, namely when the bottom drops out and we’re left for a moment with bare piano chords and Crane’s solemn croon before racing to the end.
The album is rarely explosive, but instead drives at its themes in quiet-yet-powerful ways. “Day Glo” and “Tell” may be exceptions to the rule, both putting forth a substantially larger sonic effort than the other songs. “Day Glo” fails slightly under the feathery guitar shimmer and crisp piano chords, which despite filling out with bass and the like, never materializes quite as uniquely as the rest of the album. But for better or for worse, to make the City Just As Tall comparison, these two, especially “Tell,” are for the “Mary Jo”-ers out there (myself included).
Naturally, the lyrical complexities mirror those of the music: much as the music settles into a passage for some time, the lyrics often step out of their chronological dependencies, instead dwelling on images of urban scenes. In “Tell,” Crane beautifully captures first the raw quality of Austin life: “There are no words yet, just dogs barking at the sirens…” before weaving himself into the narrative “passing neighbors yards I drop a barely lit cigarette on the ground.” Like musical textures pause to enjoy their own complexity before developing distinctly into new themes, we see Crane, when at his best, pausing and expounding on various images before hurriedly moving on to more nebulous ideas or plot-driven facts. One of the finest examples is the omniscient observations of the eerie silence of downtown after the crowds have left (in “We Understand Each Other”) which transition in the center stanza to the narrator going about his life (“Grabbed my sunglasses and my felt hat… rolled my cufflinks back”), preserving the serenity of loneliness that, left unsaid, is so perfectly captured in each scene.
This interplay of musical texture and lyrical themes, while still operating within the musically-familiar realm of “Brazos”/A City Just As Tall, permeates Phosphorescent Blues in ways that the EP barely touched on. Draw comparisons if you must, and sometimes it is necessary, but don’t inhibit the long “great album” relationship that’s likely to develop with the subtle textures of Phosphorescent Blues.
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