Smog Reviewed

Smog

A River Ain't Too Much to Love (Drag City)

In downtown Houston's Sam Houston Park, surrounded by some of the most imposing skyscrapers in North America, is a small cedar cabin. Thought to have been built in 1823, then moved to the park sometime thereafter, its only name is "The Old Place." Bill Callahan, aka Smog, might as well be this cabin. His A River Ain't Too Much to Love burrows deep into the collective unconscious of American song, its nameless river a site of reflection ("Drinking at the Dam") and escape ("Running the Loping"). This river is, as many others before it, a place of great beauty, hidden strength, and spiritual rebirth: "Say Valley Maker" equates death with a dried-up river, while "Rock Bottom Riser" uses the river as a way to both cast off and reforge familial bonds. Flush with vivid imagery of abandoned wells, thorny brambles (sometimes tangles with pornographic magazines), and sleeping horses, River also weaves subtle social comment ("I Feel Like the Mother of the World"), an ancient folk song ("In the Pines"), and playful humor ("The Well") into its rich rural tapestry. Callahan may be new to Austin, as per the wry "I'm New Here," but musically, he and his River dwell in the Old Place.