After unleashing a glittering torrent of indie-pop hooks on the Pernice Brothers album “Spread the Feeling” last year, Joe Pernice took a lower-key approach on “Richard,” his first solo album since 2009. And it is very much a solo album: the 10 songs on “Richard” feature little more than Pernice singing while accompanying himself on a nylon-string guitar.
Melody is still very much present on “Richard,” but in a subtler way. Without the guitar hooks, harmony vocals and stick-in-your-head riffs that characterize so much of the band’s catalog, these songs rely heavily on Pernice’s voice. He more than meets the challenge. His vocals are muted but tuneful on “Sullivan Street,” a reminiscence that skirts the edges of nostalgia without ever falling in. He sings with somber elegance over strummed guitar, and a trumpet part from Joshua Karp (one of only two outside contributions on the album) fills the musical break.
Later on the album, “My Long Black Shadow” is a moody take on love, or maybe codependent self-negation, as Pernice’s narrator describes “wasting my life away with you” in a way that could be read as self-deprecatingly fond, startlingly all-consuming or, maybe, despairing. Whatever the intent, the song is the catchiest one on the album, with vivid lyrics and a melody that rises and falls over sturdy, strummed guitar. Pernice’s dry sense of humor is in evidence on “Richard,” too, particularly on album closer “You Should of Came.” He said on a live webstream earlier this year that the title is an intentional garbling of the language based on something someone once said to him. As he picks out a slow, distinctive pattern on guitar, Pernice lists various reasons you should, um, of came: “someone lit a fire,” “somebody tripled of the wall,” “I cooked it all the way through.” Sometimes it’s the little victories, you know?
Recording an album by himself at home in Toronto during the coronavirus lockdown counts as a victory, too, and not such a little one, considering he’s also been working on an album of Barry Manilow covers. Also, genuine productivity has been generally hard to come by these past several months. Not only has Pernice found a way to keep himself occupied during a strange and stressful time, he’s demonstrated the diligence to keep honing his talents, and the willingness to share the results.