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Josh Rouse
Country Mouse, City House
(Bedroom Classics/Nettwerk)
John Metzger's #8 album for 2007
First Appeared in The Music Box, August 2007, Volume 14, #8
Written by John Metzger
If his latest endeavor Country Mouse, City House is any indication,
Josh Rouse has a desire to settle down. His nomadic existence stretches back to
his childhood when his father served in the military. Since embarking upon a
career in music, his work has provided documentation of his more recent moves
from Nebraska to Nashville to Spain. Written and recorded just after his
transition to Puerta de Santa Maria, Subtitulo captured Rouse as he
examined his life, while caught between a divorce and the dawning of a new
relationship. Country Mouse, City House is a continuation of his story.
Even if Rouse isn’t the boldest songwriter on the planet, he has become, over
the course of seven albums and several EPs, remarkably innovative at
synthesizing sounds and styles. With each passing effort — from Home to
Under Cold Blue Stars, from 1972 to Nashville — he has
refined his approach to reworking the music of the 1970s. On Subtitulo,
however, he finally discovered a course for channeling his restless energy, and
the maturity and grace that he brought to bear on the endeavor has carried over
onto Country Mouse, City House.
Although it shimmers and sparkles while exuding engaging warmth, Country
Mouse, City House features few true surprises. Throughout the set, Rouse
draws from his usual touchstones, grafting country-rock to ’70s soul, while also
adding the jazzy sophistication of Steely Dan. On Hollywood Bass Player,
for example, he gives Maxine Nightingale both a Strokes-ish turn and a glam-y
twist; on Snowy, he strikes the same pensive and moody atmosphere as The
Eagles’ I Can’t Tell You Why. Considering that Wilco has followed a path
that is virtually identical to Rouse’s, there are quite a few comparisons to be
made between Country Mouse, City House and Sky Blue Sky. In truth,
however, both artists have been on a collision course for quite some time, and
it is the fans who have won the most.
Much like Jeff Tweedy, the combination of Rouse’s smartly conceived lyrics
and his unwavering penchant for crafting conceptually cohesive albums — as
opposed to streams of standalone songs — is what separates him from many of his
singer/songwriter peers. His narratives frequently have been sketchy, but from
the Midwestern marriage outlined on Under Cold Blue Stars to Nashville’s
reflections on his experiences in the Music City, there’s little doubt that
there is a unifying thread of thought that has wound its way from Dressed Up
Like Nebraska straight through to the more tightly intertwined story that he
tells on Country Mouse, City House. All artists, of course, write about
their personal experiences, but Rouse’s work is so linearly focused and
cinematic that his albums essentially are beginning to look like chapters in a
novel.
It certainly isn’t an accident that Country Mouse, City House begins
and ends in winter. In using the passage of time as his backdrop, Rouse not only
lends an uninterrupted circularity to his rumination upon relationships, but he
also is able to pit the promise and warmth of the coming spring against the cold
stillness of the ensuing snowy season. The sink full of dishes in Sweetie
serves as a prelude to the daily grind of Domesticated Lovers, and the
physical distance separating the couple that is depicted in Italian Dry Ice
resurfaces first as jealousy in God, Please Let Me Go Back and then as a
yearning for home on London Bridges. On Nice to Fit In, his
satisfaction with his new home becomes a metaphor of sorts for his love life.
Many artists mine personal politics, but most have a tendency to explore the
reasons that relationships collapse. On Country Mouse, City House, Rouse
concerns himself with understanding how they can succeed. He clearly wants to
commit fully to his new girlfriend, yet he also fears that one day their
partnership will follow a familiar cycle, and inevitably sour. As he winds his
way through the endeavor, he wrestles with the idea of settling down, and he
tries to hang on for the ride. As he sinks into Snowy, the set’s final
track, it appears as if the darkness will consume him. "The way you roll your
eyes like that/Makes me not want to talk/We’ll sit and watch the plants for
awhile/If we don’t bring them in, they’ll die," he sighs in resignation. As the
song progresses, however, the wintry night that initially appears to be darkly
claustrophobic gives way to a tenuous but seductive realization that although
the road may be perilous, the journey sometimes is worth taking. 
Country Mouse, City House is available from Amazon.
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2007 The Music Box
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