By Benedict Sinclair
Sometimes there’s a mood. One where dessert must coat the human drama. You need a pleasure, perhaps a guilty one. The kind of sublimity you’ll find in the songwriting of Dan Wilson, Grammy Award-winning craftsman behind the Dixie Chicks’ “Not Ready to Make Nice” and frontperson for alt-rockers Semisonic. Wilson once penned the Grammy-nominated radio classic “Closing Time” with the band. Nowadays he’s mechanically churning out sweet, catchy, safe, comfortable songs about the ladies of his pop life.
His latest release, Free Life, is mixed in the direction of lite Nigel Godrich: its clean and balanced sonic landscape focuses on a sparse set of pleasing soft-rock ballads about relationship politics. There's a dash of lush country, a sprinkling of candy chords, a hint of Coldplay, and a smidgen of chorus harmonies. For better at times and worse at others, Wilson also reveals a '90s alternative attitude beneath his polished top layers.
As traditional as the album is there’s something to be said for its professionalism. Wilson’s a born performer, as he will surely prove on Sunday, Nov. 11, opening for the equally lush folkalist Sondre Lerch at the Swedish American Music Hall, above Café du Nord. Yet Wilson’s lyrics aren’t written or placed in a terribly evocative way - definitely his weak spot here. “Runnin, all around all around / all kinds of beautiful,” he sings between verses composed of toss-away free advice on “All Kinds."
Wilson’s about as good with manifesting sentiment as a See's manufacturing plant. After all, breaking up is hard on the heart, but it can sure be soft on the belly and, at times, kind to the palate. Really, nausea is both first to come and first to go. Long-term chronic symptoms of longing and loss accumulate deep inside the chest, like that crud you didn’t know was clinging onto your lungs until you tried to quit smoking and coughed it all up. A welcome rush of ice cream and chocolate sweets makes for a glutinous padding, a time-tested Kevlar vest of synthesized love. And Wilson has a way of helping fill that position. My favorite chewy in the box, aside from hummable hits like “Breathless” and “Baby Doll” is “Honey Please,” for the Jon Brion/Beatles effect.
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