Buck Meek’s fourth solo album was inspired by a conversation with his Big Thief bandmate and producer James Krivchenia: What if they added some electronica to their sound? Ditching guitars for synthesizers may be old-hat in pop mythos, but the notion of Big Thief’s creaky folk music incorporating a future-shock of sci-fi sounds is intriguing. And yet locating the synths on The Mirror can feel like combing through the jungle for the lost city of Zinj. It falls on Adrian Olsen, an engineer on Meek’s previous album, to provide some subtle modular synth to the arrangements. When detectable, the programmed bleeps and blips call to mind the Postal Service’s laptop frugality, albeit buried much deeper in the mix. The electronics lilt through the arrangements like a string of dim lights draped above a roaring fireplace.
So, The Mirror is more about fresh adornments than drastic reinvention. And that’s OK because the album still showcases many of the best qualities Meek has been pursuing outside of his main band. Leading a group of seasoned musicians that includes guitarist Adam Brisbin and harp player Mary Lattimore, and working once again with Krivchenia as his producer, Meek continues to revel in the role of traditional troubadour of mid-tempo laments with heavy gestures to Buffalo Springfield. The fundamentals are self-evident, the sound is timeless, and the atmosphere is easy to embrace. Meek happily moves through a laundry-list of country music requirements: twangy guitars, broken hearts, Biblical imagery, even a song titled “Ring of Fire.” “Music is in my soul,” sings Meek earnestly, in his typically quivering timber. “Rock and roll is in my blood.”
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The Mirror doesn’t always trade in great American myths. Meek’s best writing often isolates intimate moments with tenderness and relatability. Here, he challenges himself to explore thornier material. On the startling “Can I Mend It,” he takes on the role of a man who, during an argument with his beloved, lost control and smashed his fist into a wall. After describing the moment with a stark forthrightness, he asks, “Can I mend it? Can I make it whole?/Now that you’ve seen into the dark side of my soul.” In this case, the pleasant, breezy quality of Meek’s voice is disarming, sinister even, as though he is portraying the sweet and loving facade that many wrongdoers in relationships deploy to cover their sins.
The arrangements find novel ways to meet the subject matter. On “Gasoline,” Meek depicts the whirlwind of a new romance by singing a playful little tune on top of furiously strummed acoustic guitars and hi-hat heavy drums. You can feel the wood heat up in the band’s hands as they push the music to its limits, teetering on edge without ever spinning out of control.
Still, Meek’s traditionalist impulses often ignite his best songs. “Soul Feeling” is a heavy-set, whisky-soaked blues rock number, while “Worms” is a playful take on the language of 1950s country and western heritage as Meek repeats, “My baby don’t fight with me” before the Texan musician Jolie Holland whistles like a happy frontier woman. The ornamental button-pushing may add nice flourishes, but it’s the old world that Buck Meek was meant to inhabit: These are the threads he’ll always look most comfortable in.
