Ray Lamontagne - God Willin' & The Creek Don't Rise

2 September 2010 by Richard Wilson

The mellow acoustic folk sound that has dominated Ray Lamontagne's work for the past three albums has been well and truly tossed out the door with the opening track of God Willin & The Creek Don't Rise, the latest release from the critically acclaimed American performer.

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The biting funk of opening track Repo Man is so at odds with everything that has come before that were it not for Lamontagne's immediately recognisable smokey voice, it might well be just about anyone else. As if to throw that first track out there was a bold statement, the tone of God Willin' is quickly reined in and settles down into familiar territory that broaches folk, country and rock. The subsequent New York City's Killing Me features perhaps one of the strongest vocal performances of the album, evoking a warmth that lingers for the remainder of the album. Paired beautifully with the haunting title track, God Willin' & The Creek Don't Rise, it becomes pretty clear early on that Lamontagne has truly found something in the unique conditions that the album was recorded.

For God Willin' Lamontagne has formed himself a bona fide band - The Pariah Dogs - and with that comes a sense of cohesiveness. Recorded within the confines of Lamontagne's home where he self-produced for the first time, above all God Willin' has a sincerity that is seldom heard on modern records. There's no excessive instrumentation; a remarkably spacious soundscape gives these songs all the room they need to breathe while maintaining an intriguing texture throughout. Even when abandoning the band sound for a simple acoustic guitar driven number as with Are We Really Through, Lamontagne succeeds in creating something that is more than the sum of its parts.

Through the second half of the album, Lamontagne dabbles in a variety of genres. There's the bouncing folk of Old Before Your Time, the jaunty banjo-driven instrumentation bringing with it perhaps the most poignant lyrics of the album. Towards the end a distinct Neil Young flavour comes out in the penultimate two tracks, with the mellow rock For The Summer offering up a wistful melancholy that carries through to the stark acoustic number Like Rock & Roll and Radio.

Appropriately bookending the album alongside opener Repo Man is the foot-stompin' blues of The Devil's in the Jukebox, driven by pulsating drums of Jay Bellerose, red hot harmonica, intricate Dobro slide-work and the sheer fun of formulaic blues lyrics like "Mama 'bout to throw a few tomatoes on the griddle to fry".

In God Willin' & The Creek Don't Rise, Ray Lamontagne has crafted an album of understated brilliance. It offers something that is refreshingly bare while delivering a unique texture that is a product of the recording environment, the intuition of The Pariah Dogs and Lamontagne's own sensibilities as a songwriter and producer.

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