Consumer Guide Album

Gurf Morlix: In Love at Zero Degrees [Rootball, 2024]
As I've been pointing out since 2011, the 73-year-old onetime Lucinda Williams guitarist has been a phenomenally consistent solo artist. In fact, this is the sixth consecutive year in which he's released an album featuring his "grizzled handshake of a voice," his acoustic guitar, and 10 or so listenable self-penned songs, every one in this case about love even if it's almost always impermanent. My copy is signed with the hand-written inscription "For you, Robert, cuz nothin' beats passion," and has proven even more playable than the others, although as a love fan myself I wish there were more happy endings, like for instance one. "I'll take you on your terms" and "Your broken tooth, your crooked nose" I'm down with, while "What I heard on the street stung me through and through," "Sad songs sung in a small room by someone who loved and lost it all," and "Half a million shitty songs about what I'm going through" sadden me. Nonetheless, there's not a shitty song here. Root for him—I do. B+