We’ve long been fans of Austin Crane’s Valley Maker here at VSF. Writing about their previous record, When I Was a Child, we describe how Crane “takes aim at some big existential questions, even if [he] doesn’t offer any answers,” his music probing what it means to be human in the most fundamental ways. “When I Was a Child is an album about belief and love in a variety of guises,” we continued in our review. “About the big and unknowable questions, from love and growth and family to God and everlasting life. It’s an album about all of us, basically.”
Valley Maker recently put out a brand new record, Rhododendron, and we’re pleased to report that they continue to deliver on their stellar brand of ruminative indie rock. Crane has always delivered his lyrics with a strangely intense composure, his distinctive vocals giving the lines a gentle power. This is certainly true on opener ‘A Couple Days’, a solemn song about missing the death of a loved one and ruminating on that person’s impact. It’s a reminder that the most lasting legacies are not physical or financial but in our minds, a way of seeing things or approaching the world.
To think that I will be like you
To think that I will be consumed
To know that I remain confused
To always see the world in bloom
To see it like you taught me to
To know that I will be amazed
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In comparison ‘Light on the Ground’ feels slick and spry, but again the lyrics are weighty. Like most Valley Maker songs, the track is built upon a thematic bedrock of faith and religion, but anyone who baulks at the R-word need not worry, Crane is uninterested in creeds and doctrine, instead exploring metaphysical mysteries that we can all wonder about. “Prophetic and apocalyptic language shapes Crane’s lyrics,” label Frenchkiss Records put it, “but his outlook is not bound by dogma. Instead, he uses the metaphors of faith to explore the ineffable to navigate the intersection of belief, time, place, and the political present.”
Rhododendron was made with the help of producer/engineer Chaz Bear of Toro Y Moi, and his influence is seen in the album’s snaking melodies and beguiling rhythms. Songs that would be emotionally resonant with just guitar and vocals are elevated to rich and spacious indie rock songs, as atmospheric and complex as the issues Crane tackles. ‘Rise Up’ is a case in point, perhaps the most ambitious and celebratory song Valley Maker has ever made. It dips and sways, reminiscent of The Wooden Sky in the way it fuses soulful conventional folk with something more contemporary, trumpet and saxophone adding to the maximalist groove. Again Crane looks to the Gospel for his metaphors, the obvious Easter Sunday themes at the forefront of a song that’s actually a nuanced take on being raised with religion.
“Rise up
God as my witness
Set my mind on the end
Jesus Christ visits
In a dream I guess
I was five years old
Mumbled little meanings
Doing as I’m told”
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‘Seven Signs’ is another rich pop song, although it’s packed full of anxiety about America, images of hurricanes and gun shops juxtaposed against the titular Rhododendron “in the mountain shade,” while the western twang of ‘Be Born Today’ continues the eschatological feel, evoking Jason Molina’s stark imagery. “The sky opens for me,” Crane sings, “The earth swallows my feet / Blackbird coming down so mean / Bloodstain on the silent street.”
There’s a persistent rhythm that drives ‘Baby, in Your Kingdom’, a typically sober and sincere love song that at once laments life’s complications and vows to endure in spite of them, with ‘Planted in the Tall Weeds’ playing as the idea in action, struggling back toward the light. If the light isn’t reached on ‘Wonder’, then it is certainly visible at the end of the tunnel, the track an abrupt realisation of good fortune, life sliding into context as the shadows lift.
The album ends on ‘River Bend My Mind’, a characteristically spacious finale, all gathering shadows and negative space. It’s a song that confronts uncertainty with a clear-eyed sense of hope. “The running river only flows into the days I cannot know,” declares Crane, “when heaven takes me nice and slow, but heaven’s what I do not know.” Once more, Crane is not foolish enough to offer answers, though his words and voice work as a reassuring balm, even while acknowledging the ambiguity and turmoil that surely awaits.
Rhododendron is out now via Frenchkiss Records and you can get it from the Valley Maker Bandcamp page.
