Civilians
Artist:  Joe Henry
Label:  Anti-
Time:  12 tracks / 58 minutes

Joe Henry has come full circle.  Well, ok not completely but Henry is back to playing it mostly straight.  He started out in the mid 90’s in the alt-country genre, hanging with the likes of The Jayhawks.  Then with 1996 release “Trampoline” it all began to change.  Henry left the straight ahead alt-country sound and started to experiment with beats and textures. For the next four records culminating in “Tiny Voices” he gave us  four incredibly wonderful, deep, and somewhat difficult to listen to records.
 
So when I saw Henry had a new project coming out I was wondering where he would take things.  When I put the disc in my car and started driving I was expecting something more fragmented and experimental.  What I heard was a relatively straight forward sound.  For those who wished for Henry to return to the rootsier side of music, you get your wish, well sort of.
 
Though the album isn’t as full of the free form mosaics of music as in his Scar release, there is still a lot of texture.  The sound is very organic and earthy but still very accessible.
 
As for the lyrical matter, I couldn’t be more pleased. There seems to be the feeling of freedom.  There is a hope of escaping fear for something greater.  On my favorite track of the disc “Parker’s Mood”, Henry sings: 

Saints alive 
And all the saints be praised 
I see them all around me now 
They’ve been called and raised 
Their jaws gone slack 
Their yellow nails long and curling back 
To scratch the phantom of ache 
Of our lost days 
Oh, my love is here to stay 

 
Another standout track that really grabbed me was “Our Song,”  It might be one of the nicest political songs of this year.  With lyrics like: 

This was our county 
This was our song 
Somewhere in the middle there 
Though it started badly and it's ending wrong 
This was my country 
This frightful and this angry land 
But it's my right if the worst of it might 
Still somehow make me a better man. 

To sum it up in these times of trouble, you need something to believe in.  You need hope in something larger than what you can see and hold in front of you.  Henry invokes the name of God several times on this album and, you get the feeling that he sees God walking in this mess with us, kind of smiling because He knows how it’s going to end.   
 
To me this album is very beautiful and feels very sacred to me.  
 
By Gar Saeger