David Bronson’s The Long Lost, an eagerly anticipated prequel to last year’s debut album Story, arrives with some intense speculation based upon it. Story, while perhaps part of a greater Story, stood alone as a tempestuous search for inner peace. And it also stands alone as a melodic maelstrom of 1970s inspired rock and roll. It was mainstream in the best sense of the word, it was the mainstream of a medium that hadn’t been mainstream since, well, since the 1970s come to think of it.
Story didn’t ask that much of you, if you turned it on, turned it up and let it play, you’d fall in love. David just needed you to show and he would win you over and this despite the album being anything but an easy listen. All of which saved him from a problem because even in rock opera terms the story lacked what you might call a story in the conventional story: you know plot, characters, exposition. In terms of what was going on, it seemed to start at the end and end a little later than the end. Now we have the prequel to listen to, and The Long Lost requires patience in a world of exceedingly little of it. If I hadn’t loved the first album so much, I am not certain I would have given The Long Lost the time it needs, but I did and I am happy I did. The story is still hard to grasp because the movement is so internal, things all seem to be happening on the inside -though songs are directed towards a woman, it doesn’t feel as though the woman is in the room any more. You have to rely on Bronson’s interviews to lead you through and here is a long quote from Michael Doreian’s interview on the website Taken By Sound:
“As you know, the whole project most directly came out of the end of a seminal relationship of mine. And as I said, during most of this relationship and certainly for a long while after it ended I only wrote songs that were related in some way to that part of my life. This wasn’t done deliberately but it just seemed that, probably not surprisingly, this was what I was thinking about and feeling most about so I guess naturally that’s what I was writing about.
It has been pointed out elsewhere though, and very correctly I think, that this is only one level of “meaning” of the records. As far as I see it, the whole project is a kind of outlining of the growth and development of A) a young adult and B) a young artist. And by growth and development, I mean emotional, psychological, ideological, and very importantly, regarding personal identity, held values, and views on existence in general. In this way it’s actually a very thorough document of the deepest and I would say most quintessential and important aspects of a self during the period of time it took to write and produce it. I would also add that very early on in the process of writing in this extremely personal, and what I would call highly autobiographical way I realized that I had absolutely no interest in writing any other way. “
As a concept, the problem is emotional growth on the albums as albums. If Bronson took “The Ones” off one album and put it on the other, the shift in the story wouldn’t be noticed AS STORY. As music, perhaps, but not as a thought process. Only towards the end of the second part does the concept grab hold. And now I’ve said that, let me contradict myself. Story begins with Bronson’s Cat Stevens rethinking “The Turns” and The Long Lost closes with “Stay In Touch”, an intense scream of frustration brought to life with a superb slide guitar by Robbie Seahag Mangano(the wind does indeed begin to howl). When you listen to the two songs back to back it is like hearing an argument. “Stay In Touch” Bronson is furious with her, and with “The Turns” his voice goes down an octave. Together the center of the album becomes a real time thought process: it has an immediacy and it is the highlight of the 22 song suite.
Leading towards “Stay In Touch” can be depressing stuff, though leading away from “The Turns” redeems it. Bronson wrote this as one long piece dubbed The Long Lost Story, and as one long piece of work it is perfect but as two separates pieces of work The Long Lost is too difficult to penetrate in the sense I have always found Nick Drake difficult to penetrate. There are some stunning moments, “Incompetent Assassin”, “Crooked Trails” and especially “The Lost” which, at a minute twenty is the story as concisely written as humanly possible.
Lyrically it is extremely good. Not the language but the expression of its internal life is very very good. If you have ever had a woman you love break up with you, leave you, you will exactly understand how Bronson has written the emotional turmoil: he gets it, he captures not the action but the thought, how it feels.
Unfortunately, as stand alones, “In A Cave” “Animals” and a couple of others are closed off to me. And again, since from the very beginning of The Long Lost, the story is an already completed story, it seems like random snapshots. Of all the things Bronson expresses, he doesn’t tells us why what has happened to the couple or what has happened to him, or how it happened. It is so internalized it is the definition of solipsism. The Long Lost doesn’t tell a story.
So why do I love it so much? Because it sounds great. The music is deep, enriching, beautiful. It has the annals of prog-rock and folk-rock in its veins and it sounds very thorough without being over mixed. First single “Living In Name” is just Bronson and an acoustic guitar and it is so despairing and lovely. It is as if Bronson has internalized Taylor Swift’s recent comment that the best thing to write about is heartbreak. The Long Lost as an album is a loser’s album and it is a about a loser who loses, and it is not true we’d rather hear from winners, from braggarts like Jay Z, because most of us are losers, From deep inside himself, Bronson reaches us THROUGH SONG. It makes us less alone in our failures. Story doesn’t do that, Story lets Bronson out, but The Long Lost keeps him bottled in his despair.
If you just listen to The Long Lost it is really quite alarming. It reminds me (though not musically) of Joy Divisions’ Closer. It is so isolated, so inside itself. I can hear why Bronson, who sat on this for eight years, found it necessary to release it. It comes from too deep a place. A deeper place than Story, Story keeps on looking for a way out but The Long Lost keeps on shouting No Exit. Listened to as one piece it sounds like death and rebirth, like finding faith (Bronson is married so maybe love not faith) but listened to separately, Story is all movement, and The Long Lost is going round and round and round until Bronson’s frustration, hurt, bewilderment, overwhelm him in the last two songs.
I am actually happy to hear The Long Lost alone, I’d rather not think about Story at all:I enjoy the integrity of giving the audience no easy answer, not even a difficult one, just leaving them riddling on the deep, troubling, beautiful flawed album. The grade doesn’t completely express my feelings for the album, I think it is an album that may prove to be very utilitarian: I think I will take advantage of it, abuse it, turn to it when I am upset.
The album will be released on September 17th, there is a release party at Brooklyn Bowl on September 21st, 2013.
The Long Lost – A-
Story – A
The Long Lost Story – A