Album Review: Jesse Welles, ‘Devil’s Den’
If Woody Guthrie and John Prine had a love child, he might just be Jesse Welles. The peripatetic troubadour sings truth to power in his short, topical protest songs—like “Join ICE” or “War Isn’t Murder”—that wryly skewer inane political and social policies that masquerade as actions that bolster the common good. On Devil’s Den, his fifth album, Welles delivers not just protest songs but also songs that probe the shadowy corners of human nature.
The album kicks off with the down home bluegrass rambler “The Great Caucasian God,” a biting critique of the evangelical notion that God has a plan for the lives of people and of nations. The upbeat tempo of the song mirrors the breezy attitude with which many Christians ascribe the murder of innocents in war as being part of God’s plan; the song uncovers the ironies of such an attitude that motivates the political policy of the US in Israel and Palestine. The cascading blend of guitar, banjo, and slide guitar on “In the Morning” evokes the warmth of the morning light when Welles reminds us “in the morning/in the sunshine/oh I know it’s gonna be a brighter day.” Layers of stark strumming flow “Malaise,” a dialogue about the desolation of the human spirit, while the lonely wail of a harmonica opens “It Don’t Come Easy,” a spare disquisition on the ways that life’s difficulties tumble over each other; even when we think we’re free of such troubles, a new one rears its head. Sparkling fingerpicking opens the Dylanesque “America, Girl,” a love song to America in the form of a question: “America, girl/What’s goin’ on?” The album closes with the slowly unfolding “This Age,” an echoing acoustic blues that reflects on one’s physical age and the age in which we find ourselves: in whatever age we finds ourselves, Welles sings, nothing under the sun is new, “this age is the same age/ as any age has been/ nothing more, nothing new/ just as boring, just as strange, just as beautiful/ nothing’s changed.”
Devil’s Den offers another collection of Welles’ inventive songwriting and his witty, incisive glimpse into the human condition.
###
Devil’s Den is available HERE.
Resources
