Cass McCombs: "County Line"

In the constellation of retro-minimalist indie sadsacks, Cass McCombs has a uniquely depressing niche. It’s near the zen suicide of You Can’t Win (2007)-era Dolorean, and the transcending slyness of Bill Callahan, but McCombs owns his unhappiness a bit more confidently. “You never even tried to love me,” he sings, and that assertive observation is chilling in its falsetto affectlessness. He betrays just enough feeling to give his lack of drama a weird weight. The Rhodes piano, dominant except for a similarly-toned bass, drums, and some snatches of guitar and synth, puts the song into the territory of a Steely Dan or Stevie Wonder slow jam, but with an immense sparseness.

Even Wonder and the Dan weren’t so ballsy, fortifying their Rhodes with session musicians, difficult compositions, and/or funk. Part of McCombs’ novelty is how he trusts nothing more than such a humble instrument to effectively communicate intense emotions. “County Line” is soft rock as a straightforward weapon, without pretensions to wisdom or refinement. It’s still smart, but there’s a caustic edginess to it, the loaded “smell of columbine” and dark “whoa whoa” chorus. In a way it fulfills the forgotten promise of soft rock, the secret bite, the refined anger. McCombs has got it in spades, and he’s using it.