JAMES McMURTRY
Complicated Game
Complicated Game

www.complicatedgame.net
 

James McMurtry’s songwriting is as sharp as ever limning lives at key and crucial moments in Complicated Game. A difference this time is how much more acoustic and intimate the production is this time around. CC Adcock and Mike Napolitano helming the project opted for the approach which suits James and the songs here well.

There’s a nostalgic feel in many of the songs in the sense that many are reflections of past times. At the front “Copper Canteen” and “You get to Me” establish this theme. “These Things,” “Deaver’s Crossing” and “Carlisle’s Haul” are all also memoir pieced whether real of fictionalized. “Ain’t Got a Place” adds another portrait of a misfit to the McMurtry gallery. “She Loves Me” is a happy love song, a rare beast. The way James spits out the verses in “How’m I Gonna Find You Now” recalls “Subterranean Homesick Blues and it is just as urgent. The banjos of Dirk Powell and Danny Barnes give a haunted feel.

Powell is quite the utility man on the album as he also adds mandolin, upright bass, accordion, violin and harpsichord to various tracks. Produced Adcock also adds a variety of textures with various guitars, Dobro and bass. Benmont Tench adds organ to a couple, and Derek Trucks’ slide guitar lights up “Forgotten Coast.” Throughout the playing is smart and strong, a hallmark of the set.

Complicated Game has quickly become one of my favorite James McMurtry albums. The intimacy of the songs and the stories they spin coupled with the intimate sound drew me right in. I expect to be revisiting this one often.

— Michael Tearson