Bill Callahan’s latest sure is ambitious: discover what’s left of the American soul through some of its more cherished and fading myths.  What makes this particularly effective is that Callahan isn’t afraid to show how some of our fading myths are those of the present day as well as from the Wild West, Big Sky past.  The seven songs on “Apocalypse” can’t help but stumble here and there over such a large task, but Callahan’s dark rich voice and sharp writing get them pretty close.
Mostly Callahan keeps to a simple, acoustic-guitar with rhythm section foundation for the songs, though there are songs that add flute, piano and, most effectively, a heavy drum beat with some fuzzy, angry guitar on the appropriately titled “America!”  Big themes like cattle runs (“Drover,” “Universal Applicant”) mix with the personal (“Free,” the powerful “Baby’s Breath”) to explore the many ways in which that gut feeling that something is wrong is playing out inside us and within our history.  Callahan is enough of a poet to make sure that this message goes down with wit and vivid imagery, not with preachy pseudo-wisdom.
Bill Callahan takes a big chunk out of available subject matter for his latest.  To use seven songs to describe some of the psyche of the American landscape is to invite hug failure.  These seven songs just throw out some lessons learned by an American, some painful, some as wide as the Dream that never seems to completely die.  “Apocalypse” is one of his more accessible records, and one of his most fully realized.
8/10
