With an unadorned and gallant style, J. Tillman makes dark and quiet
folk music, laced with proverbial silver streaks and highlighted edges
that give his songs surprising contrast and depth.
Relatively unknown outside his role as drummer/harmony vocalist with
the Fleet Foxes, J. Tillman is a prolific singer-songwriter in his own
right; Year in the Kingdom is his sixth album since 2005.
The album is made of simple, spare acoustic arrangements, with
piano, hammered dulcimer, banjo, strings and percussion rounding out
his strummed guitar. While it’s no surprise that Tillman is an
accomplished and satisfying singer, his melodies fall into a similar,
arching pattern, resembling one another, song by song.
Lyrically, Tillman leans heavily toward vaguely Christian
imagery—kingdom, garden, valley, crosswinds, darkness and
light—but it feels scattered and disconnected. He doesn’t give
the impression that he’s explicitly dealing with any personal religious
beliefs, leaving many of his lyrics as an indistinct jumble, ungrounded
and ultimately often falling short of his ambitions.
Tillman is at his best with darker lyrical themes, and with “There
Is No Good in Me,” he reaches for a wretched, vile despair. “I possess
a taste for blood / I have numbered mankind’s days,” he sings, perhaps
from the perspective of some ancient demon, reincarnate in the modern
world.
Whatever his faults, Tillman’s clear talent in arranging acoustic
instruments to draw richness from simplicity and his strong voice make
Year in the Kingdom pleasing, perfect for a quiet room and
watching the twilight fade to darkness.
This article appears in Sep 17-23, 2009.