Josh Ritter

there really isn't a thread about Josh Ritter on ILM?

http://i43.tinypic.com/30mv96t.jpg

"I've come to expect good records from him...but this one took my breath away." Bob Boilen, NPR Music. Ritter's sixth studio album, So Runs The World Away, marks the beginning of what Josh calls a "new period" in his life, and it's reflected in songs that he describes as "more detailed and feel as if they were painted in oil on large canvasses." The response has been unprecedented: confirmed highlights include NPR "First Listen" World Cafe, and print coverage in Filter, Paste, Esquire (music issue).

Out May 4, 2010 on Pytheas Records:

1. Curtains
2. Change of Time
3. The Curse
4. Southern Pacifica
5. Rattling Locks
6. Folk Bloodbath
7. Lock
8. Lantern
9. The Remnant
10. See How Man Was Made
11. Another New World
12. Orbital
13. Long Shadows

i liked his last album a lot. (i like some of the ones before that too, but i really liked the looseness and shaggy rock vibe. (it reminded me of wilco before they got all arty.) i hope he builds on that.

i wrote a long profile of him a few years ago, he was a totally sweet guy. only musician i've ever interviewed who hugged me at the end.

Confused him with Josh Rouse for a moment... was about to say his album Nashville had grown up of me after a couple years and that I loved him... but... still haven't heard of Josh Ritter... any good staring point? Someone recommended me animal years some time ago...

possible josh ritter starting points (chronologically, from albums 2-5):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O63A7oi3PWY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH730xn1mB0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yrNLLw92F0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4aBD0z0iaY

I'm looking forward to a new album from this guy. His song "Baby That's Not All" is so slow and lovely. I had no idea he had 6 albums!

"The Curse" is one of the most heartbreaking songs I've ever heard. Like "The Temptation of Adam," it takes a sort of ridiculous concept and makes it really touching. Don't think this album is as strong as "The Historical Conquests ..." or "The Animal Years," but if you dig Dylan, or Springsteen, or Leonard Cohen, or in this case Paul Simon (copped from impressively on this album's "Lark"), you'll really like this, too.

Great report story of the Boss checking him out in Jersey a few weeks back, then pulling up backstage in his big car and asking Ritter to hop in. Very passing of the torch-y.

at his best he's really a good, imaginative lyricist. one of the few people who i don't automatically cringe when they go for the historical/literary allusions or the poetic metaphors. he doesn't land all his lines, but there are plenty of good ones.

plus he can be funny, especially on "historical conquests." that album i think loosened him up as a writer and singer both.

i have seen this guy play like 4-5 times and like him a lot

he was for a while enormously popular in ireland

got a lot of time for this bro

Here's a cheesy, drunken pic of me w/RITTER in 05

http://i43.tinypic.com/2vwxnxf.jpg

liking the new record. folkier and not as much fun as the last one, but the same general looseness and a lot of good songs. dude can really carry off a lyrical conceit -- "the curse" and "another new world" are really kind of remarkable. hard to escape the sense of pastiche hear and there (cohen, simon, springsteen, etc) but he's got his own vibe. love the way some of the songs build anthemic momentum, "lantern" and "orbital" especially. he can carry off that whole "big music" thing without seeming po-faced about it.

here and there

and ok i said "carry off" there twice, but it's because he's working such familiar ground that it's sort of noteworthy he's able to get anything from it at all.

and reviving because i've had this in steady rotation for a while and i think it's really good. a few tracks i don't care for, but a whole bunch of high points. and like i said above, the ambition in the lyrics is really something. "orbital" is this great mingling of science and a sort of agnostic spirituality that all winds up as a love song. the first verse is a big-bang creation story in less than 50 words :

and so it was that everything
that went to make up everything
was wrapped up tight inside a grain
of great insistence
and then someone gave the great command
all things paired off for the dance
the great to small, the small to grand
down to this instant

"a grain of great insistence." the guy can write. the track also uses an actual e-bow. <3.

Revisited Animal Years while visting mother a few days ago (she owns it, I do not). Such a gorgeous, gorgeous record.

I always like hearing this guy's stuff, but something holds me back from really loving them. I do appreciate a good Stack'o'lee ballad though, so "Folk Bloodbath" is one I unabashedly love.

The newest album is my favorite of his. "Historical Conquests" might have higher highs here and there, but I find "So Runs the World Away" to be a really pleasurable listen from beginning to end. I second all the props to this guy's lyrical abilities. I'm shocked some his concepts don't fall flat more often.

i love this guy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4ToqS5FoZc

I have yet to check out any of this guy's albums. He's often compared to other artists I love so I'm not sure what the hesitation is on my part. Apparently he released an album this year too (noticed it while scanning Popmatters' top 75 albums of 2013 list. Anyone listen to it?

This year being 2013, obv.

Personally "The Beast in Its Tracks" was my favorite record of the year. I think it was terribly underrated by just about everyone.

His last three albums have all been terrific. Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter is the most uptempo of them all, and has some of his highest highs. "So Runs the World Away" is quieter, folkier. I liked it a lot when it came out but I like the new one even more. Typically Ritter's (very good) lyrics run toward the literary/fictional (a love affair between an archaeologist and a mummy, or a song about the last two people on earth trapped in fallout shelter, or a song called "folk bloodbath" that brings together Stacker Lee, Louis Collins, and Delia in one track). But the big difference with the newest album is that it's all very personal - like Ritter suddenly has something actually worth singing about.

I find his albums usually have 3-5 stunners and a whole lot of stuff that's just OK. But that's not really so bad a batting average.

Cool, I'll make sure to check it out.

I find his albums usually have 3-5 stunners and a whole lot of stuff that's just OK. But that's not really so bad a batting average.

Yeah I think that's about right. Which at this point gives him a solid 20-30 great tracks. Very much worth seeing live, too, he puts on a good show.

I am not such a fan of Beast in Its Tracks, it felt a little rushed to me -- like, the obligatory divorce album. But some good songs, like this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xP6bMNg-HM

New song: http://open.spotify.com/album/1UBBJFhQa6pUpdegxfbo0M

I really, really loved his last album. I think it is just a fantastic record about divorce and has some really honest and complicated lyrics. This song... not so crazy about this one.

Ha, I was just coming to post the new song and say basically the opposite: I love the looseness of this track, I like him in carefree shaggy-dog mode. The last album I thought was kind of a drag (though a drag with some good songs). If the single is indicative, I'll like the album a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnQ89jZvZD0

And I'll say again what I'm sure I've said upthread -- he's one of the best lyricists working in any genre, writerly without overdoing it (usually), ambitious and funny and smart. He tries things that nobody else would think of, and pulls them off.

I'll still check out the album and is certainly welcome a return to the upbeat Historical Conquests sound. But the single gives me bad shivers.

And I'll say again what I'm sure I've said upthread -- he's one of the best lyricists working in any genre, writerly without overdoing it (usually), ambitious and funny and smart. He tries things that nobody else would think of, and pulls them off.

I agree with this, and absolutely love his first several records. But I really didn't dig the divorce album, which I also thought was a drag, and I don't really like the new one, which to me brings to mind something totally MOR like Ray Lamontagne, albeit with a subtle sense of humor. "Animal Years" and "Historical Conquests" clear peaks in his catalog, imo. He needs good tunes and hooks and musical ideas to match the lyrics. Still been meaning to read his novel ...

So is the new one not "Historical Conquests"-ish? That's what I was hoping for from the single.

I only listened to 2/3rd of it, but it sounded very conventional and not memorable, more "commercial," by the standards of his niche, at least. But ymmv. And if you all say later it's worth revisiting I'll give it another shot.

Not in love with the new one but the first few albums of his career were great, great, great.

I like this new track -- sounds like Steve Forbert ripping off Bob Seger. I can see the objection that this is more AOR than his earlier stuff, but I have big soft spot for this kind of heartland shtick.

https://soundcloud.com/josh-ritter/where-the-night-goes

So I think this is a good album! True that it's his most heartland-rock record, but I am ok with heartland rock. Good tunes, his singing is loose and shaggy, and I like all of his words-tumbling-over-each-other cadences. "The Stone" is a perfect little poem.

Lying wide awake
In a different house
With different arms
Around you now
On a different street
In a different town
On the same old road
That the night comes down

Just listened to this EP Bringing in the Darlings and really loving it. Stripped down, no band, very basic, great songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5l5zMqip2k

New album is just okay (based on one listen). But I really like “I Still Love You Now and Then”

I'm actually listening to the new album, which is better than I did with the last couple.

He might have peaked with Brian Deck as a producer, since Jason Isbell is a kind of boring overseer, but there's some good stuff on here, particularly some good political stuff, at least as best I picked out on first listen.

Ritter seems like the ultimate "invisible to ILM" artist to me

I'm actually listening to the new album, which is better than I did with the last couple.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, April 30, 2019 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I’m on record as absolutely loving Beast in its Tracks, which in my mind is the last of his incredible run that starts with Animal Years. (Some good stuff on earlier albums too but just not at the same level.)

Of the most recent three albums—Sermon on the Rocks is a huge letdown. I just really dislike most of that record. But the last one, Gathering, is pretty good. “Cry Softly” is a lot of fun and “Myrna Loy” is heartbreaking. That album is worth hearing for sure. This new one is better than semon but not as good as Gathering.

Will get around to Gathering ASAP! I like his early stuff, but that run of The Animal Years, The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, and So Runs the World Away is ace.

(Fun to skim this thread and learn that I've at least been consistent!)

Enjoying "Gathering" right now, thanks for the recco. The production/arrangements teeter on the brink of shambling affectation, but the songs are good and they sound like they're having a lot of fun.

My 5yo got really into “Cry Softly” so we play that all the time around the house. Trying not to psychoanalyze any of that.

Was thinking of all the (broadly speaking) singer/songwriters with extraordinary songs and albums right now: Finn, Darnielle, Springsteen...and was ready for this one to hold its own among them, but it’s not quite there after a listen. Still, sounds nice, good driving music, and as always some compelling lines and moments. “Old Black Magic” and “Blazing Highway Home” both work nicely.

Still, the Bringing Out The Darlings EP, just voice and guitar, is one of my favorites by anyone.

Have given his newest album exactly one listen but already feel like it might be my favorite of his in at least 5 years if not 10.

Wow. Dude has written some great songs.

Huh, there's some really interesting stuff going on with this new album, thank you for letting me know it exists!

Well to follow up my comment above from two years ago, Ritter’s last album (Spectral Lines) was my favorite album of 2023 and really renewed my fandom for him. I think it’s right up there with Beast in Its Tracks and Historical Conquests.

Today his newest is out, I Believe In You My Honeydew. And… I think this might be my least favorite thing he’s done. Absolutely nothing clicking with me. Lyrics feel cloying and I find the horns and backing vocals off putting. Bummer.