Visions of Us On the Land denotes another chapter in the narrative of Damien Jurado’s conceptual album-tripytch, following 2012’s Maraqopa and 2014’s Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son.
The story is rather obscured; an unnamed character gets into a car crash in the titular town of Maraqopa, which brings them into a commune colonized by characters with monochromatic monikers: Silver Timothy, Silver Malcolm, Silver Katherine, among others. Father John Misty offered his two cents on Jurado’s Brothers and Sisters in a self-indulgent essay, in which he posits that Jurado represents every character in this solipsistic fantasy world.
On Visions – which came out March 18 on Secretly Canadian – Jurado’s anonymous protagonist propels further into the introspective odyssey with a 17-track, symbols-abound road trip. At times Jurado’s surreal road trip could be alienating, but the scenery – walrus-tusked canyons, a smoldering car, extraterrestrials hovering over Seattle’s Space Needle – is too exciting to turn away.
Each new album, produced by Richard Swift (The Shins, Foxygen) feels incrementally more developed and focused than the last. Maraqopa feels studied, but incomplete; Brothers and Sisters a beautiful, highly visualized counterpart and Visions is easily the most confident of the trilogy.
The prior installments are linked together with Visions on track two, “Mellow Blue Polka Dot,” wherein an interlude has Jurado purring the hypnotic melody from B&S’s “Silver Timothy.” While the original song reached its psychedelic, celestial climax with help from a children’s choir chanting with him in solidarity, here, Jurado is alone and distant, like a voice seeping into a dream-heavy slumber.
Tracks like the cold opener “November 20, “ “Lon Bella,” in which Jurado’s rich Americana guitar pairs nicely with lines like, “Jesus on the mainline / He’s trying to call collect / Dad gave him my number / Suppose I should call him back,” the levitating ambience of “ONALASKA” and the simmering unease of “Sam and Davy” make for nice benchmarks in the album’s first half. Even “Exit 353” is an explosive stand-out.
But the thrilling first-half of the road trip is stifled by the more stuffy second-half. Even Jurado’s earnest, disconsolate self clouts the more endearing qualities of his hallucinations with tracks like “Queen Anne” or “Cinco de Tomorrow,” both of which reside in the tiresome, woebegone territory in the likes of Jason Molina. Nonetheless, Visions cements further proof that Jurado and Swift make a potent, undeniable pair.
Jurado’s story – forward-looking, but digressive – always seemed detached from reality and logic, but Visions caps this perfectly with “Kola,” an ersatz Robin Pecknold track, wherein Jurado closes with an intimate moment in the present: “I will remember you, the way you are right now.”
Watch the video for “Exit 353” by Damien Jurado from Visions of Us on the Land below.