Afie Jurvanen's fifth studio album as Bahamas, 2020's Sad Hunk, catches the adept Canadian singer/songwriter in a wry mood, ruminating on what it's like to grow into middle age in an indie rock scene that often prizes youthful cool over the kind of lived-in wisdom that comes with adult life. A longtime presence in Toronto, Jurvanen made his name backing artful performers like Feist and Jason Collett before earning his own acclaim with literate, folky albums like 2009's Pink Strat and 2012's Barchords. However, as with 2018's Juno Award-winning Earthtones, Sad Hunk (a cheeky nickname Jurvanen's wife gave him after seeing a particularly brooding and stylish press photo he'd posed for) finds Jurvanen recontextualizing this earnest image, balancing his earthy, acoustic roots with forays into organic '70s soul. Joining him are his longtime associates bassist Mike O'Brien and drummer Don Kerr, as well as fellow guitarists Christine Bougie and Sam Weber. While the album is rife with a soulful sophistication, Jurvanen keeps things simple, often constructing tracks out of spare guitar riffs with just a modicum of bass, drums, and backing vocals added. Cuts like "Trick to Be Happy," "Less Than Love," and "Can't Complain" are loose, groove-based anthems that evoke the classic '70s and '80s work of artists like Boz Scaggs, Prince, and Robbie Robertson. We also get several rootsy slow jams in "Fair Share" and the wicked, fuzztone guitar-accented "Wisdom of the World." There's a melancholy vibe to many of the songs as Jurvanen closes in on his forties and struggles to find the creative inspiration that seemed so effortless in his younger days. That said, he finds moments of wry humor and even danceability in his introspection. On the disco funk-infused "Own Alone," he sings "Too broke to feel so wealthy/Too young to feel unhealthy/Too old to understand the selfie/Too far gone for you to help me." With Sad Hunk, Jurvanen has crafted an album about reaching the age where you don't care about being cool anymore, yet he somehow manages to find ever more nuanced and inspired levels of cool musical insight in the process.
© Matt Collar /TiVo