Pete Lanctot Brings His Edgy, Lyrical Americana Rock Narratives to Bushwick

by delarue

Multi-instrumentalist/songwriter Pete Lanctot’s latest album, No Sign of Love or Farewell- streaming at Bandcamp – is a series of richly lyrical character studies among the down-and-out. While the narrators change with each song, the characters interact in subtle ways: unraveling these mysteries is a lot of fun. So is the music. Tom Waits and Blonde on Blonde-era Dylan are reference points, along with the C&W, oldtimey blues and swing that influenced them. Among New York songwriters, the obvious comparison is Tom Shaner. Lanctot’s band is fantastic. Here he sticks to just guitars and vocals, leaving the violin to Ginger Dolden (who also plays Stroh violin, marxophone, music boxes and autoharp ).Joe McMahan and Adam Brisbin both contribute guitar, with Chris Donohue on bass and keys and Bryan Owings on drums. Lanctot is at Pine Box Rock Shop in Bushwick at 10:30 PM on April 11.

The album opens with the swinging, bluesy, cynically aphoristic Could’ve Been Good:

Rattling the chain-link fence
Moon as white as a bone
Things stop making any sense
When you’re this faraway from home
Kicking at the gravel
Throwing rocks along the path
Got my pick and shovel,
I’m my own better half

A slow but rousing oldtime country waltz, Coming Around paints a vividly unsettled picture of smalltown nocturnal revelry. Lanctot switches to 6/8 time for the regretful Come to Me Now

I know people stare
I ain’t unaware
Let ’em stare til they’re blind if they like
I look at my feet
As I walk down the street
In my heart there’s a permanent spike

The band builds a richly burning web of acoustic and electric guitars as Used to Be a Rambler gets underway: Lanctot develops this character with a classic blues vernacular that gets funnier as you start to realize what direction he’s going in. The southwestern gothic tale Fifty Miles From Nowhere pulses along on a Bo Diddey beat: it wouldn’t be out of place in the Steve Wynn catalog. “I’m still carrying the kindling from the bridges that I burned,” Lanctot’s narrator muses vengefully.

He brings back the rustically waltzing charm with The Only Love I Know and follows that with the brisk, murky, nocturnal swamp-rock of Perdido:

Well my grip isn’t slipping, I let go completely
I’ve started telling lies in my prayers
Planted a seed in the soil of doubt
And resentment is the fruit that it bears

The album’s longest track, a doomed, oldschool soul-flavored travelogue, is I’ll Meet You at the End of the Line. Its most oldtimey number is the gospel-infused banjo blues Walk Right, a dead ringer for a Curtis Eller tune. Lanctot keeps the stark banjo shuffle going with Ride On Elijah, the album’s most overtly Dylanesque and final cut. Does it tie up all the loose ends here? That’s a mystery you’re going to have to solve yourself.