Rating: NNNN
Borrowing liberally from both the Velvet Underground and the Bible, Humor Risk is San Francisco-based songwriter Cass McCombs’s sixth album and his second this year. (The quieter, more challenging Wit’s End came out in April.)
Though he used songs from the same recording sessions for both, Humor Risk is quite a different collection, accessible and verbose by McCombs’s standards. It’s also a terrifically fun ride, rhythmically speaking, especially on fuzzy opener Love Thine Enemy and jangly earworm The Same Thing.
McCombs’s lyrics tell allegorical stories about people in California, comparing a local drug dealer with Daniel in the lion’s den. He muses on the beauty industry’s ideals in a song about a mannequin gallery, and tackles writing, time and immortality on The Living Word. There’s no County Line, but it’s exhilarating stuff.
Top track: The Same Thing
