I am not a fan of the EP. I can forgive a single (hey, we all gotta pay the bills) but if you don’t have enough material for a record, keep touring and write more material. I’ll see you when you’re got north of eight songs and 30 minutes.
Despite my bias, I do sometimes succumb to an EP, but usually only years after, when I’m confident the artist isn’t going to just release the same songs, plus five more to make up their next LP. I’m looking at you, Miya Folick and the Beaches. Love you both but…er…stop that.
Disc 1834 is…Have Mercy EP
Artist: Paul Cauthen
Year of Release: 2018
What’s up with the Cover? A visual re-creation of the concert experience, by which I mean the angle to see the artists can be awkward, and any photos you take are likely to end up a little blurry.
But you don’t go to a live show for glamour shots, you go for the music. Not coincidentally, that’s why we’re here as well.
How I Came To Know It: My friend Ross introduced me to Paul Cauthen. This particular album was an impulse buy when I was looking for something else under miscellaneous “C” in the country section of my local record store.
How It Stacks Up: I have three Paul Cauthen albums, if you decide to count this EP (which I will do). One of them has to finish third and this is it.
Ratings: 3 stars
Groove country? Lounge western? That is the best approximation I can muster for what to expect from a Paul Cauthen album. Cauthen is clearly country music but there is something a little extra embedded in his sound that gets into your spine a few vertebrae below where “mosey” typically resides. Imagine Waylon Jennings crossed with Studio 54 and you’ve got an approximation.
The Waylon Jennings comparison runs deeper than just the seventies country swagger (although there is plenty of that). Like Jennings, Cauthen is blessed with a sexy baritone warble that makes everything he says seem that much more meaningful. You know that very cool, vaguely dangerous dude who sits in the corner of the pub. He speaks sparingly, but when he does it’s something incredibly wise or, if not wise then at least memorable.
That’s Cauthen, except when that guy with a couple of bourbons in him and is sharing all kids of wise and/or memorable stuff and maybe dancing a bit when the jukebox plays something with a bit of jump.
A lot of country music has an amble to it, but Cauthen rides his music at a mid-tempo gallop. It all sounds country except sitting up in the middle of the beat it strays into lounge territory. Tom Jones if Tom Jones had deeper thoughts.
Although this is Cauthen’s second album as a solo artists (and his seventh if you count his previous work in the band “Sons of Fathers”) there are elements that felt a bit unformed to me. The sound I’ve described above is all there, but the songwriting doesn’t have the same immediacy of purpose as the albums that follow (2019’s “Room 41” and 2022’s “Country Coming Down”). This is Cauthen as a highball: tasty but a bit watered down in places.
The album’s best song is the opener. “Everybody Walkin’ This Land” is what would become Cauthen’s signature sound on later records, as he runs through a litany of different kinds of folks (some good, some bad) but all of who are forced to share the land together. The best I could take from it was Cauthen’s philosophy of “we’re stuck with the jackasses as well”, and while we don’t accept their behaviour, we can invite them to change for the better and see how it goes.
All the songs have some degree of the frenetic energy of “Everybody Walkin’…” but not all of them pull it off with the same aplomb. Think about that guy at the club who has had one too many and is cutting it up on the dance floor. 75% of his moves are expressions of wanton brilliance, but 25% are him losing his balance and bumping into your table and spilling your drink.
Overall, this record feels slightly undercooked (most EPs do), but all the brilliance that makes me a Paul Cauthen fan are there, and the good easily outweighs the bad. Hopefully that’s the case for everybody walkin’ this land as well. I suppose it depends on the day.
Best tracks: Everybody Walkin’ This Land, Resignation, Cadillac
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