by Benji Heywood (@benjiheywood)
In the late 90s and early aughties, there existed a kind of songwriter who approached music seemingly backward. Think a young and marble-mouthed Isaac Brock or the disaffected Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. These were musicians who weren’t turning conventional songwriting on its head, rather, they approached the craft as if they’d never heard a song before. This kind of dumbstruck magic and wonder abounds throughout God Is Luck, Bad History Month’s monolithic new album. God Is Luck is Bad History Month’s most ambitious album yet, and a worthy winner of Post-Trash’s Album of the Week.
Bad History Month, the solo moniker of Philly-via-Boston songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sean Sprecher, has already released some confounding and rightly celebrated recordings in the past but nothing with the gravitas of God Is Luck. It’s a bit ironic then that this album, according to Sprecher, came to him quickly. It’s an album as much about the tension between free will and fate as it is about navigating a musical equation to its theoretical conclusion. Sprecher never tells you how to feel, instead allowing his haunted double-tracked vocals and the music’s surreal out-of-body-ness to guide you wherever your thoughts may lead. To call God Is Luck a trip belies how expertly crafted it is but is essentially the right comp – where this album takes you will be completely different than where it takes me.
But it’s not all noise and confusion. “Touch the Riff” and “God Is Luck” – the album’s twin pillars of approachability – are both breezily engaging, suggesting there’s a bit of freak folk in this bitch’s brew. The title track opens the album, where rambling chords open to freeform drumming, cymbals splashing about in a shimmering spurl of guitars and noise. Sprecher’s voice is calm and confident, as it is throughout the album. The effect is a pleasant juxtaposition with the music – you may not know where the song is headed sonically, but you know exactly what Sprecher is talking about. When he sings “What am I afraid of? Why not take the risk?” in “Touch the Riff” it feels like a rallying cry of hard-won clarity.
The denser moments are what lend the album its Homeric vibe. God Is Luck is a wanderer’s album. Whether it be in the noisy haze of “Am I Better,” the terror and twilight of the gorgeous “Shadow Work” or the quiet sparsity of “Let It Ride,” God Is Luck portends to be an unmappable expanse. Motifs appear and disappear. Hooks arrive and refract. Songs blossom in seasons of their own making. But it’s never without purpose. What the fuck would Jesus do, indeed.
Perhaps the best example of this is “Rock Hopping,” the album’s anchor. The song unspools like a kite pulling in a fair wind, evoking a warmth of spirit that surprised me. Sure, there’s a melancholy at the heart of Sprecher’s tunes but he doesn’t dwell on what might be lacking. Instead, the song’s forward motion – as it builds to its dynamo conclusion – posits rock hopping as a metaphor for transcendence. It’s a moving and generous moment on an album chalk full of them.
Another arrives in “Summer of 2069,” the album’s range-y 12-minute opus, where I thought I’d slipped into a waking fever dream. Tape loops swirl. Drumsets collapse down staircases. Acoustic guitars bob along the surface of a flooded dustbowl. For much of God Is Luck’s epic runtime, listening is an exploration of a doppelganger world and it’s easy to find oneself lost. For those willing to punch their ticket, the experience is one of the most rewarding listens you’ll have all year. Simply put, there’s no other album quite like it.