Existentialism has a sound (and it’s hard to ignore) with Greg Freeman’s introspective All Set The Bone
Greg Freeman takes us along for a ride out west with his third album, All Set The Bone. Produced by John Congleton, All Set The Bone is the distilled sibling of Freeman’s prior works. It’s an album about growing out of your own skin, reckoning with your place in the present political landscape, and the melancholy that comes with entering new phases of life.
All Set The Bone was recorded with a full live band, something Freeman had long been aiming to do. It’s a foundational element that sets the album apart from his prior work, and coupled with his lyrics, fosters a sense of urgency. On his second album, Burnout, Freeman established himself as a lyricist with roots in storytelling. Now, he takes it a step further and uses that to serve as the basis for the present moment that All Set The Bone is situated in.
The political opening track ‘Cahokia’ sets the tone for the record. Named after the largest pre-Columbian city in America, Freeman exclaims, ‘These are the days of one thing after another.’ The song introduces a central thread throughout the album: when faced with the unrelenting passage of time and social strife, what do you stand for? How does it dictate your daily life?
On tracks like ‘Culture’, Freeman asks, ‘Who do you look to when you’re all on your own?’ There is an intensity in what Freeman is asking us to consider, bolstered by the incessant guitar strumming. This track captures the essence of the album. It builds in intensity, crescendoing with Freeman’s assertion, ‘No culture, and no more rock and roll.’
Each song is a reflection of the transitional period in which Freeman wrote All Set The Bone. The album is ‘going west’, manifested. He recorded in Los Angeles with an entirely different band, and he was in the middle of moving out of Burlington, Vermont, the place he called home for the last decade. The album hits its stride with the track ‘Withdrawn’. The horns in combination with Freeman’s lyricism make this song feel like you’re shedding layers right there with him.
As a whole, the album isn’t tackling new ideas for Freeman. His first album, I Looked Out, centred around similar brooding themes. On that album, muddled instrumentation takes centre stage, and when combined with solemn lyrics, the album is ultimately weighed down. All Set The Bone is a more self-assured version of Freeman. The lyrics work in tandem with the music, illustrated on tracks like ‘Indu’. The chorus, ‘All I wanna do is look at you’, rings through like Pilot’s ‘Magic’, with a guitar intro reminiscent of early Strokes or Vampire Weekend.
A standout track, ‘Loser’s Prize’, comes at the halfway point of the album. This is a song where the live band recording really shines. After Freeman’s noteworthy line, ‘Love will make you weak / But only at the knees / When I’m alone I can be anyone but when I’m with you I’m me’, the band takes off with an incredible jam moment.
‘Next To Nothing’ opens with a funky guitar and percussion combination that, with Freeman’s strained vocals, creates one of my favourite tracks on the album. It’s the song that gets the most replays on my end. Freeman’s off-key singing strikes in the perfect way. That being said, there are definitely moments on the album when the intense combinations of scratchy vocals and horns can be overbearing (‘Untitled 10’ doesn’t quite hit the note for me).
The album closes with ‘Bury Me The Shovel’, a track that captures the feeling of being somewhere past closing time. While the barback mops up the sticky floors and you sit contemplating any number of follies or regrets, this is exactly what the band would be playing. It’s got beautiful strings and accordion arrangements that wrap the album in a way that brings it all full circle.