Album Review: Josh Rouse – Love In The Modern Age


Love In The Modern Age




An itinerant Nebraskan most recently living in Spain, Josh Rouse has been plying his trade as a singer-songwriter for more than two decades now since the release of debut Dressed Up Like Nebraska.

Success has been modest (2013’s The Happiness Waltz peaked at number 189 in the Billboard charts) and to-date any real finessing of his sound has been to do with the introduction of more Latin-leaning influences post his marriage to fellow recording artist Paz Suay.

None of this hinted at the semi-radical change in direction which Love In The Modern Age represents, as instead of continuing with the alt-country troubadourisms of the recent past he’s decided to mine the largely forgotten seam of late eighties MOR – to its critics a house of sophisticated nothingness which went particularly well with a white wine spritzer.

It’s a bold move and one which, when he gets his time-travelling bearings right as on the insouciant Businessman, creates a cocoon of misty escapism that recalls Brucie-era Prefab Sprout without the theological angst. Hats off for not playing it safe then, as gone largely is the trusty acoustic guitar, replaced with muted synthesisers and, during the title-track, even a rakish saxophone. Not assets traditionally in his song writing toolkit, as if to declare the rift with the past an open one Rouse even goes to the vocoder on opener Salton Sea before pealing through a Peter, Bjorn and John style whistle break as yet another Lady In Red slips through his fingers.

Throughout you retain the utmost respect for Rouse’s ability to remain in character even though there are parts which don’t work, particularly on the slightly lairy I’m Your Man (not, sadly, a cover of Wham! in their imperial phase), whilst it’s hard to identify much with the yuppie stalker introduced on Ordinary People, Ordinary Lives.

In some ways this reflects the identity crisis of the decade itself, a series of youthquakes and aftershocks as it bridged too far, too soon, away from the beige cultural straitjacket of the baby boomers. Not that the singer particularly keys into that confused panorama, but that’s the problem with transposition; out of context the appliques can feel inauthentic.

Perhaps this is over analysis. One of the era’s strengths was the ability to absorb things without asking too many questions of them, and in that vein Shine On Tropic Moon is faithfully moribund, Hugs And Kisses races The Kane Gang for popped in, souled out-fulness and closer There Was A Time ends up sounding gloriously like a sunset trip down a dusty back road somewhere deep in his home state.

There is something about this period which shouldn’t just be the property of those still clutching onto their CD copy of Tango In The Night; Love In The Modern Age doesn’t go deep enough to fully uncover it, but a shameless cash in on their penchant for nostalgia it is not.

Reinvention has become standard process for so many artists that it shouldn’t feel like a surprise, and Josh Rouse’s rewiring is radical enough to warrant investigation, even for those who bought the t-shirt…although it no longer fits.



(Andy Peterson)


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