The acoustic and electric tremolo-treated guitars that usher in “…Another World”, the opening track on Pat Kelly’s new album, Hook, are almost like a balm, a soothing ointment to the rough state of the world. Kelly complements them with his distinctive baritone voice: “Give us another try / Another world where we can waste our time / What is the pretty point? / Another world where I can roll a joint.” Kelly seems to be caught between accepting what is all around us and wishing we could have a blank slate and start anew.
That sort of agnostic viewpoint is a linchpin of Hook, which follows up his 2021 release, Bored Mortician, and offers uncomplicated comfort with its gentle pop and folk leanings. As usual, Kelly is armed with the usual suspects, musicians he’s worked with in the past who understand the assignment: Tim Good and Andrew Daly Frank on lead guitar and bass, Winston Cook-Wilson (Kelly’s Office Culture bandmate) on keyboards and backing vocals, and Jess Tambellini on backing vocals as well as the odd trumpet and modular synth (Kelly is responsible for drums, guitar, and lead vocals).
Kelly has a knack for writing and recording songs that inhabit a distinctly low-key vibe, and the eloquent lyrical passages and his knack for, ahem, hooks, make for an irresistible combination – songs that hit just right but often in such an understated way. “Brought down and I think it’s a shame / I get so tired of the rain,” goes the refrain of the gently chugging, mid-tempo track “Double”, a line that seems defeatist and angry but also somewhat resigned and uncaring given the song’s light touch (aided by sharp, infectious guitar leads).
The unassuming country-folk gait of the single “Young Buck Company Man” uplifts the tale of a man who seems to be living the corporate-cog dream, drinking margaritas and traveling on exotic business trips. You can almost picture Pat Kelly’s smirk as he immerses himself in the details while Cook-Wilson’s electric piano provides the perfect backdrop.
Elsewhere, Kelly’s narrators are steeped in gloom and bad circumstances: the desultory pace of “Movie” is well-matched with the subject, the overwhelmed director of the cult film American Movie (“All my money’s tied up in dreams”), and in “Rotten Deal”, the ex-con telling the tale is facing great odds while trying to get his act together (“I broke your heart / I broke parole / I took your dreams and swallowed them whole”). The latter track features one of the album’s more unusual choices, a call-and-response chorus featuring Tambellini and Cook-Wilson, singing “I promise daddy’s home,” perhaps in a moment of sarcasm and madness. Is he really coming home? Is this foolish optimism?
One of the great strengths of Hook is that it’s wonderfully timeless; it could’ve been released in 1979 or sometime last year. The instrumentation is simple and almost maddeningly tasteful, and Kelly’s vocals – which seem to fall somewhere between Bill Callahan and David Berman – are wistful and oddly soothing. The press notes make brief comparisons to Cameron Winter and MJ Lenderman, which isn’t far off the mark, but while certainly drawing influences from a wide range of sources, Pat Kelly’s Hook is very much its own quietly winning collection of exquisite songs.