The Daily Sabbatical

At his best, Cass McCombs is one of the best songwriters alive, and he is at his best on Wit’s End. Leonard Cohen is perhaps his nearest relative now, though without the religion and with a little more diversity in song structure. They have in common the darkness, the patient unravelling of the song, and the willingness to let sadness and longing stew in their own juices until there’s something akin to redemption.

County Line is the album’s first track and its standout. It stands out not so much in quality—all the songs are of very high quality—but in style and mood. There’s almost a slowed down BeeGees feel to it that generates at least a little something uplifting. Don’t get used to it, though. A scan of the coming titles tells a lot: The Lonely Doll; Buried Alive; Memory’s Stain; Hermit’s cave… One is reminded of Eliott Smith—both Smith and McCombs have a penchant for the sad waltz—but Smith’s reaching voice could always fool you into hope. No such tricks with McCombs.

In the singer/songwriter tradition, there seem to be guitarists and pianists. McCombs is proficient at both, but this is a piano album. It’s composed with the sort of musical awareness that one sees in (later) Elvis Costello or others who dabble in musicology, but it doesn’t come off pretentious. Instead, the forms very much serve the functions and the result is beautiful.

Don’t look for many better albums this year. Buy this and Low’s new album, and be happy with your misery.

You can stream the whole album at The Guardian.

What is it about the end of the world? Even shoddy attempts to depict the cataclysmic or apocalyptic draw me in. Add zombies or some other form of distorted human to the mix and I’m sold. It’s tempting to spin a story about how it gives the reader a metaphor for the existential struggle of his life, besieged as it is by the corruptions and disappointments of modern society. But that, I think, would be largely bullshit. Closer, perhaps, is the perverse frisson generated by the recognition that the world is much more fragile than we think it is. There’s also the fact that a coherent vision of a world wiped clear of technology—which no one knows how to recreate—makes us recognize all we take for granted and trivializes our complaints about car-rattles and imperfect internet connections. Whatever the explanation, Justin Cronin’s The Passage provides a surfeit of this satisfaction. Though it takes a distant second behind Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, The Passage is one of the best post-apocalyptic reads in recent years.

Military scheme gone awry? Check. South American virus carried by bats? Check? Escaped convicts with unholy powers? Check. Messianic wild child of nature? Check. Zombie-like humans with vampyric characteristics? Check. Teetering and abortive attempts to restart civilization? Check. Yup, it’s all there. Cronin, it must be admitted, is a proud owner of “End of Days for Dummies,” but don’t mistake him for a dummy. The Passage operates on a grand scale, with every step motivated so that one never feels like one is reading a parody or a uncontrolled pastiche of tropes. The damn thing is 800 pages long, and is only the first book in a trilogy. It’s closest relative is probably Stephen King’s The Stand. But I think it’s better. It’s certainly better written. Cronin, an Iowa Writer’s Workshop graduate, avoids most of the overwriting that plagues genre fiction. No one will confuse him for Michael Chabon or Jennifer Egan, but it’s a relief to be able to indulge in this somewhat guilty pleasure without being reminded of it by clunky and unnecessary prose.

The book’s main failure, in my view, is that the love interests and the interpersonal relationships feel stipulative. It’s too bad, because clearly Cronin wants our sympathies to give power to the various deaths and births and narrow escapes. He has them to some extent, but not because anyone is in love, but rather because we want the good guys to win.

I’ll refrain from giving anything further away about the plot. This is one of those books where feeling events unfold and anticipating the unknown is an integral part of the pleasure. I do want to correct at least one misconception which could be generated by the other reviews out there. This is not really a vampire book. The baddies here have sharp fangs, are nocturnal and share a few other characteristics with the Nosferatu, but they’re a different beast. There are certainly no cloaks or coffins, and you can forget about garlic and crosses. Though Cronin appropriates many motifs, he winds up making them his own.

In short, well worth a read if you’re a fan of the genre. A movie is coming, but it is done by the Gladiator team. Ridley Scott did direct Blade Runner, so maybe it’ll be good. But I’ll place my money on the book.