JOHN GRANT has always been searingly honest, often brutally so, about himself in his songwriting, but Boy From Michigan may be his most personal yet. It is certainly his most political.
This is a ‘home thoughts from abroad’ album, as the now Icelandic resident meditates on a life growing up in America and the political divisions that have widened since he left.
Over his previous four albums, Grant has moved from the 1970s style soft rock of his startling debut into more electronic territory. This album balances both those approaches, not as say, Pale Green Ghosts did by featuring songs in either style. Instead the organic and electronic often exist within the same song (‘The Cruise Room’ ) creating a powerful synthesis - oboes and pianos exist comfortably alongside electro beats and ambient synth textures. This is Grant’s vision for his music at its most fully realised.
Whereas previous Grant albums wanted you to dance as much as they wanted you to think, here the beats are slow, the songs long and ruminative - this is an album of memory, recalling days at the fair with friends (‘County Fair’ ); the pressures to suppress his sexuality (‘Mike and Julie’: “I only feel shame and that makes me feel rage, at myself” ), and how socially constructed, traditional, ideals of masculinity work to create such suppression (‘Billie’ ).
Grant also examines how capitalism is a religion in America (‘Your Portfolio’ ) and how Trump is a symptom of American society, not an aberration from it, and how the virus of colonialism did not die with the British and French empires, but mutated into new, more insidious forms (‘The Only Baby’ ).
This is not an easy listen. It takes commitment, but the rewards are worth it. This is work of depth, intelligence, empathy, and humanity.
