Alex Cameron
Late to Set
SELF-RELEASED
On the first track of Late to Set, Alex Cameron is wondering why he hasn’t given up yet. He’s playing a character, of course; as far as I can tell, the only actual Alex Cameron who’s been covered in the press—if not exactly “panned by the LA Times”—was an official pronouncer for the National Spelling Bee whose voice was featured on a study guide CD (B-, sounds better on vinyl). But the Australian songwriter’s previous album, Oxy Music, was arguably his least celebrated, and the gap between records feels especially pronounced but not atypical. “A cold war breakup” is just one phrase used in press materials to describe the circumstances around the new album. No wonder these are some of Cameron’s most wearied and brooding songs to date, a mood that strangely sharpens his songwriting without sacrificing his melodic sensibility.
Cameron has been favoring sincerity over irony in his music for almost a decade now, but the melancholy pervading Late to Set stands in contrast to the warmth of his previous records. “Everybody gets faith / But nobody gets saved,” he sings on “Testosterone in Blue,” emphasizing the sort of passivity that manifests as powerlessness on “Stand-in Man,” which finds him “screaming out for chastity.” The low, steady thud and reverberating guitars that open the album become one of its defining features, creating an atmosphere of unease that gives Cameron’s inherently catchy melodies some added breathing room. On a different album, “Jesus Never Had No Porno” might’ve been a satirical track with a tight runtime; here, it stretches on for almost six minutes, awash in wistful anticipation and haunted by the ghosts of rock ’n’ roll, barely hanging onto its structure.
It’s not all quite so grim, though. Cameron strikes a fine balance between lampooning and lamenting, and even “Richochet,” the song with the most heartbreakingly personal connotations, reaches a point of acceptance. Though mostly maintaining a lonely, almost regal tone, the album revs up with the urgent and primal “Red Hook Rain,” a penultimate blast from the past. But Cameron doesn’t end the record without reflexively turning to the subject of modern masculinity—his forte—on a song called “Violent Man.” “Silence is violence, man,” he sings before declaring, “I will do violence now.” Ironically, that’s when the track’s hauntingly sparse arrangement gives way to its most irresistible groove. It creeps in, but never hits. The man hums, then shuts his mouth, swallowed by synths. The abrupt ending jabs at the listener, to be sure. But it doesn’t sound like surrender.
