Album review: Willem Maker – New Moon Hand

OK, stop what you’re doing. Seriously, right now. Stop. Sit down. It’s not often I get unequivocal here, but I’m going to tell you that you owe it to yourself to listen to Willem Maker. New Moon Hand is the oasis of contemplation and harsh beauty that you need to banish the cares of the day, fifty-minutes of rootsy blues craftmanship that will take you away from it all and make you glad for the experience. I’m not kidding; this is an amazing album.

I’ll concede that maybe environmental factors have amplified my appreciation. The weather has finally turned hot and sunny, and it seems like so much of the music I’ve been hearing recently is fast, hectic and dense; New Moon Hand is anything but that. It’s languid, thoughtful, rough-hewn and spare; the sort of thing that makes you long for a broken-down old armchair on a sun-dappled porch or a spot by the door of an empty freight carriage, somewhere to sit and think as you watch the world go by.

Environmental factors of another (and far less pleasant) sort have played a large part in the record itself, apparently. New Moon Hand documents Maker’s experience of growing up in a town with some of the highest dioxin pollutant levels in the US, but it’s not a collection of anti-corporate protest songs. Maker’s experience was more personal, as he was hospitalised with debilitating seizures and manic episodes caused by lead and mercury poisoning from the smelter slag illegally disposed of around his home. He showed great musical promise as a kid, even being invited to play with Ryan Adams’ band as a teenager, but his spell in psychiatric care derailed his career temporarily; while there, he refused medication for his as-yet undiagnosed problems, and channelled himself into his lyrics. It’s a poignant story, and marks Willem Maker as a uniquely driven artist – but even without it, New Moon Hand would shine as a masterwork. The songs here transcend the need for lyrics, with Maker and cohorts wringing out all the soul and heartache that the blues can hold (and then some) into an album that is genuinely moving on every level.

As fine a tune as it is, “Black Beach Boogie” is a slightly misleading introduction, with its Dylan-like folk stylings, a glassy slide guitar picking out a lazy figure to a slow and simple beat. But it’s Willem Maker’s voice that makes New Moon Hand what it is, and as soon as his ravaged rasp starts singing, you’re hypnotised. “Rain On A Shinin’” picks things up a bit with a full roots-rock band, some warm rhythm chops and understated lead work building up a lazy smoky afternoon vibe. It’s rare to find a promo blurb that delivers its promise, but the press release here suggests that you can hear the wild open spaces of Maker’s youth in his music, and you can – the unhurried pace, the subtleties of light and shade, the way he delivers his lyrics in little rhythmic bursts, all combine to paint a picture of the American South that is a far cry from the tired ironies and stereotypes of the hipster-roots set.

It’s tricky for me to really go to town with comparisons to Willem Maker’s peers and equals, because I’m nowhere near as clued-up to proper roots and blues music as I’d like to be – though New Moon Hand has reminded me that I need to remedy that situation sooner rather than later. But drawing on my own musical background, Maker reminds me most of all of Screaming Trees, albeit a more authentically Southern and less rocky version thereof. It’s the combination of simple blues progressions played languid and soulful with a gravelly confessional over the top, I guess; both bands have their roots in the old-school blues, though they’re separated by much more than geography.

But they also have in common an ability to effortlessly tweak your emotions, taking those simple hooks and building them up to a basic but rousing stomp through a classic chord sequence, making it feel like the band are strumming it out on your own heartstrings. If you don’t get an emotional lift at the end of “Hex Blues”, for example, I expect you’re either deaf or dead.

Elsewhere, “The Greatest Hit” sounds like a missing Goldrush-era Neil Young track with Joe Cocker guesting on vocals after a cigar and whiskey binge, and “Old Pirate’s Song” is a lazy roots-rock groover, in and done and gone in two and a half minutes but carrying more heart than lovesick whale. “Lead & Mercury” is probably the darkest moment on New Moon Hand, but it’s that darkness you only notice just before dawn, before the warmth of the sun brings back the hope that lonely nights can banish. Yeah, so that sounds schmaltzy as all hell; I don’t care. I really mean every single word. Go buy this album; if you honestly don’t like it you can mail it to me with the receipt and I’ll buy it back off of you, just so I have the opportunity to gift it to someone with enough heart to appreciate it.