Once John Moreland achieved some of the success and critical acclaim he had been searching for, he started putting pressure on himself and for a couple of years, he says, didn’t really want to write songs. “I’m hesitant to talk about it because I know people don’t want to hear some dude complaining that his dream of being a successful musician came true, but there are things about it that you don’t expect that can mess you up,” Moreland says in a release ahead of his new album, LP5, out February 7 on the Thirty Tigers label. “One of the ways I got back into liking music again was to let go of the idea that every time I’d go mess around with an instrument, I’d have to be writing a really good song. I just gave myself the freedom to go into my little music room every day and mess around with different instruments and different sounds. It doesn’t have to be anything. It doesn’t have to result in anything.”

The result is the most interesting John Moreland album to date.

9 new songs (plus 2 instrumental tracks) offer the same themes of cautious optimism and quiet resignation that prevailed in his previous collections, but the participation of an outside producer has given these tracks a different sound. This marks the first time Moreland has turned his record over to another producer. The Tulsa-based singer/songwriter has said in the past that self-production of the early albums was more out of necessity; he didn’t have access to other studios or engineers and was just trying to get the records made. LP5 was recorded at the Echo Lab in Denton, TX, and produced by Matt Pence (of Centro-Matic fame). Pence has built some beautiful soundscapes where Moreland’s exquisite lyrics can shine. Beautiful guitar work of sideman John Calvin Abney is on display, as always, but the sparse arrangements of past albums have been tastefully expanded with keyboards and percussion.

It would be a folly for me to attempt interpreting the songs on LP5. Part of the beauty of John Moreland’s songs is how they can mean so many things to so many people. However, I will highlight a few of my favorites.

“A Thought is Just a Passing Train” offers a cool blues groove with Abney’s acoustic guitar over some killer electric piano and other keyboard solos. Definitely going to be fun to hear this one live!

“Let Me Be Understood” features some trademark Moreland harmonica licks as he sings, “Friend, I’ve been restless, and I’ve been unwell/ But I have a heartbeat and a trial to tell/ You can sentence me to burn if you feel that you should/ But let the clock’s hands turn and turn/ Let us be understood.”

Before singer/songwriter Chris Porter moved to Austin and became a favorite in the music community there, he lived in my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, where we got to see him hone his chops in local bands. We were all devastated when he was killed in a crash while on the road in 2016. John Moreland called Chris a friend and wrote the song “In Times Between” about two weeks after Porter’s death. “You’re swimming in the sea that’s streaming from my eyes” is just one of the lines that expresses the deep sadness of the song.

John Moreland fans will be very happy with LP5 and the opportunity to dig deep into the beautiful lyrics one of this generation’s best songwriters has offered.

Grab your copy of LP5:

johnmoreland.net