Whitehorse have returned to their folk-rock roots on their latest full-length record, All I Want Is All of It. The Canadian husband-and-wife team of Luke Doucet and Melissa McClellan recorded the album in a 19th-century farmhouse to capture the mood of past spirits in the ancient place. Of course, only a New World denizen would consider a place built 200 years ago old. Its semi-rural setting on the other side of the tracks offers a haunting aural landscape. The musicians said the location functioned as the creative inspiration behind the new disc.
Whitehorse‘s 11 songs are purposely experimental and vary in style and tone. They range from the primitive rawness of a demo (“Lighthouse”) recorded on McClellan’s iPhone to the feedback-filled electric guitar-driven tale of the future “2155”. These tracks share an attitude toward the human condition, regardless of their sonic and topical differences. Life is a struggle whose purpose is unknown. The fact that love exists and that we share the same world has its own rewards.
As the album title suggests, the protagonists of these tales are greedy suckers who want it all. “I want the milk / The money from the milk / and the milk maid,” Doucet and McClellan croon in harmony. They make their demands in quiet voices, which suggests the singers are aware that their gluttony for food, cash, and sex is too much to ask for and reflects badly upon themselves. However, who really doesn’t want it all? As you read this, you are probably daydreaming about fulfilling your own desires between the lines of criticism. The lyrics are a two-way mirror in which you see yourself and Whitehorse. We all want it all, whether we admit it or not.
In terms of the individual contributions, Doucet’s powerful electric guitar playing demands attention on tracks like “Fire” and “Year of the Snake,” much like McClellan’s commanding vocals on “Two and Only” and “See the Light.” Throughout the album, the couple successfully balances their individual strengths with their collaborative chemistry. They are a team that maintains their distinctive traits.
The spouses take turns singing solo as well as duetting. Several of the tracks concern their relationship, such as “Pure Poetry” and “Please Tell the Stars”. The pair are joined by their son Jimi on Wurlitzer and Hammond organ, Jimmy Boswell on bass, John Obercian and Fred Eltringhamon on drums, and Vincent Jones on keyboards. The additional musicians expand the palette and keep the music from sounding redundant.
Lyrically, All I Want Is All of It combines gritty realities, emotional eccentricities and mystical incantations. The songs can be satiric, with silly lines such as “a flash in the bed pan” one minute and nasty (“I’ll be the bullet in the chamber”) the next. The album turns the eccentric and unconventional into a new normal. Musically, what starts as pop can twist into noir. The songs offer tales of circumstances in which love and death can be found as preconditions of existence. You cannot have one without the other. Whitehorse want it all.