There wasn’t supposed to be another album. According to the man himself, 2021’s The Ballad Of Dood And Juanita was to be the last Sturgill Simpson record. There would only be five. He’d said it time and time again, but how many musicians play this game of peekaboo? When cash stops flowing as heavily as it used to, a farewell tour can be the tempting financial diuretic for a band that needs to pay the bills. Fans will pony up, only to feel duped a handful of years later when the reunion tour is announced. Simpson always seemed too noble for that, so we took him at his word. With his vocal hemorrhage in 2021, it seemed like his retirement was a done deal.
In interviews, Simpson often emphasized the five album “arc” that he had committed the Sturgill Simpson records to, which was “a cohesive narrative of the life journey of a human soul from the traditional Western perspective.” His debut, High Top Mountain, was a past life – innocence that you couldn’t go back to. Metamodern Sounds In Country Music told the story of a soul’s journey, while A Sailor’s Guide To Earth represented life lessons passed on to a new generation. Simpson described 2019’s Sound & Fury as a “sleazy rock and roll record,” about sin and the damnation of the human race. The conclusion to the arc was The Ballad Of Dood and Juanita, which told the story of rebirth and redemption. Save 2020’s Cuttin’ Grass series, what more can one artist say?
Sturgill seemed to give us a clue as to how he could return to the stage. For fans like myself, coming to terms with the loss of one of the great and prolific songwriters of the last 10 years, it was hard to find hope. But he said it would be the last Sturgill Simpson record. He said he wanted to form a band. It seems so obvious now that a band like Johnny Blue Skies would be Simpson’s way back onto a record and onto the road.
Especially given Simpson’s aforementioned panache for narratives within his music, it might be tempting to ascribe some sort of story linking the eight songs on Passage Du Desir, but that doesn’t seem to be the case this time around. If there’s a narrative on this album, it’s Johnny Blue Skies, the band. They allow the album to be decontextualized from the rest of Simpson’s catalog. Simpson seems to have had that in mind as the project came together. For the Passage Du Desir press cycle (if you could call it that), Simpson has refrained from the traditional, almost mandatory, interviews and singles, ostensibly avoiding questions and comparisons to the five Sturgill Simpson records.
The album’s opening track, “Swamp Of Sadness,” begins as if the band is playing in the French Quarter of New Orleans with a delicate vignette of accordion by Mike Rojas, mandolin by Sierra Hull, and strings by Matt Combes. “Trying to break the cycle of solitude and sin/ Here come those sirens again,” Simpson croons in his trademark rugged drawl as Rojas’ keyboard sends the band soaring into a chorus about melodies so captivating that you can’t help but sing along. Simpson’s voice merges subtly with the band’s sonic canvas, blending seamlessly with the music and completely immersing us in a night in the Louisiana bayou.
It’s the contrast between the Cajun-inspired “Swamp Of Sadness” and BB King-influenced licks on “If The Sun Never Rises Again” that offer the best explanation as to why no singles were released for this album. (That is, an explanation besides “Sturgill just does whatever the fuck he wants.”) Each song is so wildly different from the last that a one or even two song teaser wouldn’t give any listener an idea of what Johnny Blue Skies can do. “Get yourself a band that can do it all,” someone must have said to Simpson during his reprieve from recorded music. He did.
One of the album’s highlights, and probably a top 10 song penned by Simpson himself, is the sprawling, desolate “Jupiter’s Faerie.” The song begins with sparse instrumentation as Simpson mundanely describes looking up an old friend. As the rest of Johnny Blue Skies join in, they echo the narrator’s heart wrenching discovery that his friend had succumbed to suicide. “For some reason today, I thought of you/ Thought I’d look you up, see what you’ve been up to/ How long’s it been? Ten years or maybe more/ Since I told you not to call me, shut you out and closed the door.” It’s a masterful portrayal of the guilt a person feels when someone close to them falls victim to suicide. “Today I read the news, you were gone/ You left a year ago, you chose to check out and move on/ I guess the pain became the only thing each and every day would bring.” Without question, this song will bring the house down each night on the band’s upcoming tour.
Despite its seven-minute runtime, “Jupiter’s Faerie” isn’t even the longest track on the album. “One For The Road,” the album’s final track, takes the listener on a nearly nine-minute journey. It starts with a straightforward confession of one man’s secrets and the subsequent fallout, then transitions into a psychedelic country jam (featuring Mike Rojas on the fucking melodica!) that wouldn’t sound out of place on Metamodern Sounds Of Country Music.
Shrouded in the new identity of Johnny Blues Skies, Simpson has crafted some of his best songs to date. To Simpson, this band has to feel like some kind of rock and roll version of Halloween. Like Ziggy Stardust or the faces of Dylan, Johnny Blue Skies allows Simpson the freedom to be himself without the comparisons to a back catalog. Nevertheless, it might be tempting to think of Passage Du Desir as a continuation of the Sturgill Simpson book of songs. Simpson’s comforting, contemplative tone shapes the record as it does on his solo records. “Scooter Blues,” a country blues version of something out of Jimmy Buffett’s catalog, tells the story of Simpson living life out of the shadow of his solo catalog. “People say, ‘Are you him?’ I say, ‘Not anymore,'” he sings in the chorus. Simpson, as Johnny Blue Skies, wants us to know that he’s not “back.” The old Sturgill is, in fact, retired; fishing all day and stepping on Legos. For Simpson, Johnny Blue Skies is the way forward.
Passage Du Desir is out now on
