Amanda Petrusich of The New York Times noted back in 2016, that she wasn’t sure what it was about the music of M.C. Taylor – the pitted voice behind Hiss Golden Messenger – that made her feel so connected. Was it his welcoming presence and his universal knowingness? Was it his humble empathy to all human unhappiness? This is clearly a man who understands redemption, devastation and life’s sharper corners. These are questions that Taylor answers throughout Hallelujah Anyhow, an album that seemingly cuts through nebulous aspects of life with startling optimism and hope.

“I see the dark clouds. I was designed to see them. They’re the same clouds of fear and destruction that have darkened the world since Revelations, just different actors. But this music is for hope,” states M.C. Taylor in the album’s press release. It’s a valiant statement to make. At a time when 90% of the world is obsessed with misery, and 9% are trying to rectify it, it leaves a very small minority who are learning to cope, but desperate to cling onto their God-given right of happiness too. It seems that through Hallelujah Anyhow, M.C. Taylor asserts himself within this small minority and ultimately puts across an outstanding reason to join him in it too. The album’s opener kicks with an early morning jive, ‘Jenny of the Roses’ is a track that breathes with gusts of Americana akin to The War On Drugs and Jason Isbell but with paralysing happiness – it comes across 'paralysing' because it feels so alien to be this close to positivity in 2017.

‘Lost Out In The Darkness’ follows suit, it’s quick to the point and reminiscent of Springsteen’s more brooding moments, it asserts the notion that this is the album Bruce himself would have written in rebellion to world’s misery at how 2017 has panned out. ‘Harder Rain’ demonstrates Taylor’s more sumptuous moments, it’s reminiscent of the cooling moments spent with the one you love, it’s the sundown song, the first cigarette after work number, and another fantastic string to the bow of Hallelujah Anyhow.

This is the thing though, M.C. Taylor has always worn his emotions on his checked-plaid shirt sleeve, unafraid to intertwine them within his pensive music; last year he described his previous record Heart Like A Levee as a “reflecting pool” for others to view their own emotions in. Hallelujah Anyhow makes the most of this outlook once more. The album’s delicate moments, such as ‘Gulfport You’ve Been On My Mind’, feel gauzy and lucid, expanding and contracting around boozy harmonica; ‘Caledonia, My Love’ chimes atop of a piano intro and sorrowful acoustic guitar. Taylor’s desolate lyrics flirt with humankind’s most cautious of emotions, there are glimmers of reflection and loneliness embedded within but, ultimately, this is Taylor hunting for traces of light in the darkness.

On his seventh record to date, Taylor turns to his lustful cannon of Americana once more but turns his back on the misery that may have plagued his music previously. In doing so, he similarly refutes much of the music made by his contemporaries this year too. ‘Domino (Time Will Tell)’ sits out on the album as a highlight, with its four-to-the-floor driving rhythm, it pours itself with cuts of Ryan Adams circa Heartbreaker with teaspoons of Exile On Main Street stirred in. Offered to us at the turn of autumn, when nights begin to bite once more and we hit the slippery slope of seasonal nihilism, it’s nice to have the light of ‘Domino (Time Will Tell)’ offered to us before we slide; a fitting reminder that 'everything-will-be-alright' before the hangover sets in; kind of like swallowing back a Berocca before you go to sleep following a night of debauchery.

Within tracks such as ‘When The Wall Comes Down’, the album’s closer, Taylor talks most fondly of optimism and, due to its positioning on the album, it almost feels fitting as a final send-off: “Oh tear it down / Now step back Jack from the darkness / And while I’m here, I’m gonna sing just like a songbird”. Hallelujah Anyhow feels most viably equated to songs of freedom, songs of movement, songs of progression. “That’s the only thing I want to say about it,” says Taylor, “love is the only way out. I’ve never been afraid of the darkness; it’s just a different kind of light. And if some days that belief comes harder than others, hallelujah anyhow.” Hallelujah anyhow it is, this is one for singing in the rain to and it feels fantastic to do so once more.

Tom Churchill

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