No Trail and Other Unholy Paths

Album review

With each release, Jaye Jayle bring more colors to their music, even if they're mostly different shades of black. House Cricks and Other Excuses to Get Out introduced the gritty soundscapes and arid grooves they then fleshed out with psychedelic electronics on The Time Between Us, a collaboration with Emma Ruth Rundle (who, like Jaye Jayle frontman Evan Patterson, pursued a career as a singer/songwriter outside of her work with heavier acts like Marriages and Red Sparowes). Nevertheless, it's still surprising just how much the band expands its horizons on No Trail and Other Unholy Paths. Produced by Dean Hurley -- known for his work as David Lynch's music supervisor, among other projects -- Jaye Jayle's second full-length is both dusty and sleek, melding traditional and experimental sounds into avant-garde Americana. This isn't just acoustic guitars and grafted-on beats. No Trail's brilliant arrangements are taut, restrained, and surprising, particularly on its dual title tracks. "No Trail Path One"'s Philip Glass-like piano arpeggios and woozy drones are as evocative as they are unexpected, setting the stage perfectly for the outstanding "No Trail Path Two." A journey to nowhere set to a relentlessly plodding tempo, it's filled with spine-tingling moments, not the least of which is Patterson and Rundle trading the lines "What took you so long/What took you?" Even more than Jaye Jayle's previous releases, No Trail and Other Unholy Paths matches the intensity of Patterson's other group, Young Widows. On "Ode to Betsy," a huge electric guitar cuts through the song's acoustic bustle with a force that previously seemed to be the sole property of his other band. Here and throughout the album, Jaye Jayle match their more colorful sounds with vivid storytelling. Where House Cricks felt rooted in a specific place, No Trail deals in surreal time-traveling. Rundle returns on "Marry Us," a simmering duet that pairs a timeless story with decidedly 21st century synths and beats. "Accepting" juxtaposes industrial beats and a brittle piano that wouldn't be out of place on Westworld before transporting listeners to a sax-drenched nighttime cityscape. The band takes an even sharper left turn with "Cemetary Rain," a piece of driving synth pop that moves into the future, or at least the '80s. While Jaye Jayle still excel at haunted Americana, there's so much more to their music on No Trail and Other Unholy Paths -- it's a leap into unfamiliar territory that proves they don't need a path to wherever it is they're headed.

© Heather Phares /TiVo