Although Heart Like a Levee is often heavier than its sunny predecessor, the core Hiss band ( Megafaun’s multi-instrumentalists Phil and Brad Cook, and drummer Matt McCaughan) tend to strike a major chord M.O., even when the lyrics are decidedly minor-chord: There are moments of profound communal joy here that continue the homespun gospel Taylor minted on Lateness. Nor do the mature themes smother the songwriting, where Taylor locates a grounded soulfulness in his tapestry of folk, country, blues, and dub, whether he’s furrowing deeper into the groove he started digging on Lateness of Dancers-as on freewheeling standout “Ace of Cups Hung Low Band”-or easing back into his porch. It’s not “rock star writes home,” but a familiar theme to anyone who’s felt pulled to honor disparate callings, and the rare record that doesn’t treat adulthood as a punchline or a final resting place. Heart Like a Levee is Taylor reckoning with the guilt of being an absent provider whose work financially supports his family-and spiritually sustains him as a good father. As his Merge debut and breakout moment, it necessitated endless touring, taking him away from his wife and two young kids, who inspired the music and gave it purpose as a vocation. “The more it hurts, the more you think you can stand a little pain.” “The misery of love is a funny thing,” he sang on “Mahogany Dread” from 2014’s Lateness of Dancers. Family and adulthood became central to the work, the revelations they offered making the hard times worthwhile. The album’s charred hush found one anyway. After years flailing in ’90s hardcore band Ex-Ignota and Americana outfit the Court and Spark, Taylor gave up trying, for the first time, to find an audience.
Hiss took flight with 2010’s Bad Debt, a record written in the quiet moments while Taylor’s newborn son slept.
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