Oklahoma singer John Moreland has been largely self-sufficient to date, running his own mail order business, packing and shipping the six albums he released between 2008 and 2015. This is Moreland’s first album with 4AD, after an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last year brought him to wider attention in the US.
Having spent his teenage years fronting punk outfits, Moreland found his true calling via the songs of Steve Earle, and it’s in the southern-tinged folk of Earle, Townes Van Zandt and even the blue-collar mini-biopics of Bruce Springsteen that he has discovered his metier. More lyrical than the Boss, more heartbreaking than Ryan Adams, Moreland is the real deal. Recorded in Little Rock with a crew of local musicians and friends, Big Bad Luv was mixed by Grammy-winning Tchad Blake, whose previous credits include iconic acts like Tom Waits and American Music Club.
Titles like ‘Every Kind Of Wrong’ and ‘Love Is Not An Answer’ suggest this isn’t a ‘happy ever after’ record. The former sees the singer admitting, “I guess I’m dying to let you ruin me/ And you’ve been sinking all year long”, while the latter has him pondering, “I thought I was an actor/ I let my colours show/ What if I’m just a bastard/ laying low inside your radio?”
‘Old Wounds’ drips with melancholy, even down to the tremulous guitar solo, while the anger on ‘Lies I Chose to Believe’ is palpable. It’s not all slow soul-searching, however. There’s the southern fried boogie of ‘Ain’t We Gold’; and the ‘70s-inspired honkytonk of ‘It Don’t Suit Me (Like Before)’.
Big Bad Luv may not be the sunniest of albums, but there’s genuine emotion and hurt inside these songs. “Bless our busted hearts,” pleads Moreland on the aching ‘No Glory In Regret’, and it could be a perfect calling card for this gorgeous album, the magnificent lyrics of which feel like poetry set to music.