How Did I Find Myself Here? (2017)

It's honestly amazing to me that a Dream Syndicate album, comeback or otherwise, must now be filed under geezer-rock, especially given that I felt like a bit of a geezer myself already when I first encountered the band in my late 20s. But here we are, decades past the last release. Good luck and Godspeed (from the day late and dollar short). Because it has one song, "80 West," that instantly and reliably evokes everything I love about Dream Syndicate, the album met all my cautious expectations and then some. The loping bass, the thundering guitars and their righteous whine, the film noir drug addict mumble of Steve Wynn through the unruly disarray—it's all there. Play loud. Go do it now. There's a bonus in the longish (6:22) and poignant close to the album, "Kendra's Dream," an ode to former bandmate Kendra Smith that is quite insinuatingly beautiful. I like "Glide" too but in terms of the quality that's where I think How Did I Find Myself Here? starts to slide into the rest of the album, which is more on the order of weaker versions of the best of Dream Syndicate. The title song, evidently intended as a kind of definitive statement, coming in at a stately Coltrane-like 11:13, is ambitious and occasionally interesting—notably when it resorts to figures from the Grateful Dead's classic 1969 performance of "Dark Star"—but more often it is straining for effect. As, I'm afraid, does much of the album. After "80 West" and "Kendra's Dream," approach with caution.