Jenny Lewis has by no means had bother expressing herself. On Pleasure’All’s “Pet and a Truck,” she sings, “My 40s are kicking my ass … and handing them to me in a margarita glass.” Even earlier than she cut up along with her indie-rock group Rilo Kiley a decade in the past, she’d assumed a persona that’s one half Dusty Springfield, one other half Linda Ronstadt, and yet one more of Mary Richards (shake gently and sprinkle in a splash of Gram Parsons to style.) She has at all times sounded just a little down on her luck, and he or she’s at all times sounded OK with it.
Pleasure’All is the newest quantity in an ongoing drama we’d name The Many Loves and Losses of Jenny Lewis. She’s a number of years older, simply as clever, and as intelligent as at all times. The place she spent her 20s lamenting the nice that received’t come out of her with Rilo Kiley and her 30s rising up with fists as a solo artist, she’s spent her 40s to date flirting with new wave (the self-titled 2016 album by Good as Fuck), AM radio pop rock (2019’s On the Line), and now countryish pop rock on Pleasure’All. On the Line was Lewis’ finest album since her 2006 solo debut, Rabbit Fur Coat, stuffed with memorable melodies, reducing lyrics, and an easygoing, pure vibe. She professed that whereas she was a scorching mess (or a “Get together Clown”), she was form of getting over it (apart from all of the Purple Bull and Hennessey). Her 40s have been treating her properly for essentially the most half.
That attraction continues on Pleasure’All, but it surely’s by some means just a little looser. She’s nonetheless stuffed with amusing turns of phrase (“I’m not a psycho/I’m simply making an attempt to get laid” on “Psychos” and “I’m not paranoid/However I’m not not” on “Giddy Up”), and he or she nonetheless ruminates on midnight confessions she confessed many midnights in the past. There’s a longing and a nostalgia that threads by means of Pleasure’All, as Lewis makes an attempt (and sometimes fails at) romance, and it’s typically veiled with a smile. “I ain’t bought no children,” she sings on “Pet and a Truck” concluding “I bought a pet and a truck and a few unconditional love.”
Coupled with the album’s Music Metropolis vibes (assume Elvis Nation or Nashville Skyline however with silkier vocals) Lewis’ wit and candor discover extra leg room on Pleasure’All than on earlier albums. “I’m not a toy y’all, I’ve bought coronary heart,” she sings between claps on the soulful title monitor, and he or she appears like she means it. Producer-guitarist Dave Cobb (Brandi Carlile, the Highwomen) and a bunch of musicians that features multi-instrumentalist John Brion, metal guitarist Greg Leisz, and Lucius’ Jess Wolfe on backing vocals, amongst others, flip Lewis’ compositions into sturdy nation rockers.
The recipe works particularly properly within the straightforward groove of “Apples and Oranges,” which provides additional magnificence and ache to Lewis’ pining when she sings, “He’s scorching and he’s cool/He simply isn’t you.” And the country-rock feeling enhances the album’s finest songs: When Lewis sings about screaming “I need you again” on “Essence of Life,” the metal guitar wails, too, and on the upbeat “Cherry Child,” they create a candy yacht-rock texture that makes “I fall in love too simply with anybody who touches me, fucks with me” nearly appropriate for radio. By the point she sings, “A sequence of tears leads me again to you” (nation songwriting at its core) on the springy last monitor, “Chain of Tears,” and the album ends (after solely 32 minutes) there’s a sense of positivity concerning the album that makes you need to play it once more.
Pleasure’All is the sound of a lady who has accepted herself — her previous and her current — and now simply needs to chop free. Her damaged coronary heart nonetheless bears bruises, but it surely has healed sufficient to maintain her transferring. When life palms Lewis lemons now, she makes Lynchburg lemonade.
