Silver Jews: Tanglewood Numbers : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

This album of soulful, synth-colored Americana is the first sound out of poet/singer-songwriter David Berman since he attempted suicide with Xanax and crack after a fierce bout with depression. These ten songs -- with help from Will Oldham and sometime-Jew Stephen Malkmus -- are full of sadness and regret, spiked with absurdist hipster humor. Berman has a gift for lyrics like "Punks in the beerlight, two burnouts in love/I always loved you to the max!" and "Fast cars, fine ass/These things will pass." These are tunes about breakups and God and smoking the gel off a fentanyl patch. But mostly, they're songs about slow recovery, especially at the close of the record, when Berman sings, "There is a place past the blues I never want to see again . . . /Black planet, black freighter, black sea." Here's to sticking around.