Grand Salvo: "Road"

In the shadow of Grand Salvo’s Death (2008), Soil Creatures is Paddy Mann’s quiet meditation; in many ways, all exoskeleton and warm breath, it’s more a peaceful expiration than its predecessor, certainly more intimate if only because Mann, for once, seems to be addressing himself. But without any formal structure, any compelling story to carry his melodies from anticipation into release, this new album, third for Grand Salvo, finds pace mostly in the dichotomy between short, fully realized nuggets and long, wandering sketches. Both are gorgeous—that’s what he do—but I can’t help but feel that the whole focus of Soil Creatures is something that didn’t need any dwelling upon to emphasize anyway, especially at this point in Mann’s growth as a songwriter.

In other words, his croon is as strong as ever, a lilting, effortless bit of troubadour wonder that absolutely dominates every song, as it should, and his arrangements still walk a fine line between inimitable nuance and melodramatic festoons. If we assume that now Mann’s purposely limiting his reach to acoustic guitars, wafting strings, a harp, maybe a piano, and the looming spirits of backup choruses, then “Road”—which reprises, kinda, the melody and refrain from opener “Storm,” already stung with longing—upends the guy’s existential picnic basket and leaves no course of dread, indecision, disappointment, obsolescence, or loneliness untouched. “All day I walked alone,” Mann repeats—a juicy, crying violin puts his sadness on blast; his response is to pluck a stepping pace through the fog. And as he keeps going the song ages. It grows old while you’re listening, has no real place to be or end up besides at the moments of fading out, as patient as it was when it started. So this is where Grand Salvo goes after Death; I think I can get ready to accept that.