Year: 2024
Label: Tribulation Recording Company

Another year, another Lonesome Wyatt album. Although this is already the second album this year, preceded by the man’s other project Those Poor Bastards’ rather lacklustre Back To The Primitive (reviewed here).

As we’ve remarked in all our previous reviews of Lonesome Wyatt’s output, we’ve long since passed the point where quantity has replaced quality. The man’s work ethic is admirable, putting out at least one album every year, but sadly it has led to a string of tepid releases that make up for lack of inspiration with formulaic mediocrity.

“Urgh, again!” moaned yours truly upon first listen of Afraid, “Another trite, uninspired album of the same old, same old”. However, first impressions can be deceiving: after a few listens, bright moments started to rise to the surface. A song here, a song there, and after a while, the good songs outweigh the less inspired ones.

Perhaps it’s not so wondrous that the first impression was not overly positive. The intro The Woods is nothing but cheap and cheesy spookiness – which is, of course, entirely par for the course when it comes to Lonesome Wyatt – and the absolutely weakest track on the album, Medusa, stands out like sore thumb with its annoying, ill-fitting techno synths and electronic beats. It’s also one that will stick with the listener, and not in a positive way.

But there are far better tracks lurking on Afraid. One of the first to leave an impression is the slightly medievally carnivalesque melody of Kewpie Doll, clad in a guise drenched with sorrow and pain. The lyrics tell a macabre tale of willing possession which suits Lonesome Wyatt to a tee. One can even forgive the electronica percussion of the verse, which abuses hi hats like a trap producer.

The duo of Too Late To Be Afraid and Petrified take the spooky pulp schlock and wring tragically macabre tales of missed opportunities and futile romances. Adorned with haunted pianos and eerie synths, this is latter day Lonesome Wyatt And The Holy Spooks at their best: gothic, dark, humorous but not comical. Wyatt takes the inherent cheapness of the novelty spook songs he so obviously looks to for inspiration, and manages to exorcise the silliness out of them. After a while, even the first track proper Spiritual Proof turns out to be a pretty cool track.

To be sure, there are less inspired and more mediocre tracks on the album as well. I’m hard pressed to say much positive about the circus organ melodies of In The Dark, the chittering electronica synths of The Chills or the distorted, heavier electric guitars on Monster Magazines – but even if Afraid isn’t all killer, no filler, after a while it reveals itself to be more of the former than of the latter.

And whilst that’s a far cry from the excellence of Lonesome Wyatt’s early albums, it’s two things: better than a lot of his latter day output, and objectively, not a crummy result at all. Out of ten proper tracks, three killers, a couple decent tracks, a couple fillers and only one bad track isn’t too shabby a result.

I’ll still recommend new listeners to start out from the beginning – Lonesome Wyatt And The Holy Spooks’ debut Sabella (2001), the first five Those Poor Bastards albums and the Lonesome Wyatt/Rachel Brooke collaboration album A Bitter Harvest – instead of this album. But for long time fans and friends, this is one of the more rewarding newer releases. Considering last year’s Longing For Oblivion (reviewed here) was also good, Wyatt with his Holy Spooks have been consistently outdoing Those Poor Bastards as of late.

Visit Lonesome Wyatt And The Holy Spooks on their Bandcamp or Facebook