The Empty Country album is here and it’s incredibly good. It is, of course, similar in many ways to the sound of Cymbals Eat Guitars, but there are also lots of unexpected sounds and vibes on this album. There’s more of a folk rock feel on this album than anything CEG ever did, especially on “Diamond,” “Untitled,” and “Becca,” and “Chance” is a kind of jeweled music box of beautiful voices. It’s super listenable and unpredictable at the same time, a combination of attributes that usually makes an album a lifelong listen.
Joe D’Agostino is better than almost anyone at writing elegiac songs that don’t feel maudlin or manipulative. I think it’s because his lyrics are so focused on specific details. He does such a good job of activating emotions through concrete details. In “Emerald,” which is one of my favorite songs on the album, there’s a great example of this early on, in the scene-setting beginning verses: “They used to smelt lead here/Trapped in this sprawling dream/Glow, emerald city.” For someone like me who grew up on the East Coast, those lines immediately evoke the kind of desolate landscapes that I’d see from the windows of SEPTA and PATH trains near Philly and in north Jersey. And later on too, these beautiful lines: “County fair/Woodwind band/Never let go of my hand/I’ll have to sometime/Let’s leave it for awhile/Hope our hearts halt softly/It’s all been a gift/The crescent sun shadows/In the solar eclipse.” That captures a type of fleeting micro-thought, ineffable shit that would take pages and pages to spell out, in the space of a few lines full of well-placed detail. D’Agostino is an amazing writer, and the Empty Country album is one of the best things he’s ever done.