Album Review: Josh Ritter - The Beast In Its Tracks

More known for his panoramic explorations of American life and history, Josh Ritter turns the focus inwards following the breakdown of his marriage to Dawn Landes in 2011. But where many break-up albums and songs are full of vitriol and bile, time has lent Ritter some perspective on his sixth album, The Beast In Its Tracks. The end result is an album where Ritter is still a somewhat fragile figure, but he's pulled through the worst of it and come out the other side. Musically, this is still a very acoustic little album, with Ritter saying he toned down his usual grand arrangements in favour of something more intimate to reflect the subject matter. But the tone is not all doom and gloom and, with a few exceptions where traces of bitterness creep into the lyrics, this is a surprisingly uplifting and optimistic piece.

That sense of optimism isn't quite apparent on opener Third Arm. Even if you had no knowledge of Ritter's background, it's immediately clear this is a break-up album as he forlornly sees someone new leaving his ex-lover's house with “your smile on his face”. But from there things get substantially brighter. A Certain Light offers a sense of an emotional winter heading into spring while Nightmares is neat little playful piece despite its title. In Your Arms Awhile and New Lover head into alt.rock territory, the latter offering the cutting line, “If you're sad and you are lonesome and you've got nobody true/I'd be lying if I said that didn't make me happy too”. The album is probably too unassuming to be everyone's cup of tea, but the superb lyrics and light moments certainly offer warmth on some pretty lonely nights.