The Natural Bridge

Sound DNA

• Alt/Indie
• Lo-Fi

• brittle
• melancholic
• poetic

About

A plainer and more harrowing journey than its predecessor, <i>Starlite Walker</i>, <i>The Natural Bridge</i> is a compendium of despondence and comically terrifying imagery from singer/songwriter David Berman. Its instrumentation is perfunctorily strummy and unadorned; Berman’s vocals are a function of his storytelling and forego any pretense about the singer’s role in rock music. His wry delivery is the setup for a series of bittersweet punchlines—emphasis on “punch”—that extend the length of <i>The Natural Bridge</i>; this is the rare pop album that relies almost entirely on its words. The album is a loose description of a sour American road trip. Berman is attracted to bars and motels and abandoned towns, and he gravitates to unlikely locales: Cleveland, Dallas, Tchula. His protagonist is a perennial figure in the arts (the hopeless man with an undying heart), but even as <i>The Natural Bridge</i> crosses bleak chasms, Berman can't resist the pull of romance. In its final seconds, the album turns to the redemptive power of female companionship.

via Apple Music

Tracklist

Credits