Few songwriters today imbue frustration and anguish into the sweetest of melodies as Joe Pernice. It’s a winning combination, and as leader of Pernice Brothers since 1998, Joe has wrapped his darkest thoughts in music that references Jimmy Webb, The Left Banke, Big Star and Bread. He’s not all doom, gloom and self-loathing, but usually any hope in a song is tempered with a little despair. (He grew up a Smiths fan and was a colleague of late Silver Jews frontman David Berman, so it all makes sense.) “I fell in love with the possible world,” Joe sings on the title track of new album Who Will You Believe. “Then I smashed my heart against the stones.”
Joe’s musical output slowed to a trickle by the late-2000s, but like a lot of artists, pandemic lockdown and the world events of the last four years rekindled the spark. You can feel that in what is the best, most inspired, most Pernice Brothers-y album we’ve gotten in more than two decades. It’s also the group’s first for Nashville label New West after 25 years self-releasing records on Pernice’s own Ashmont label. Having a budget for things like a string section — such a huge part of Pernice Brothers’ 2001 masterpiece Overcome by Happiness — makes these already great songs soar just a little bit more.
Who Will You Believe is also a bit of Pernice Brothers Greatest hits, with weepy acoustic ballads, sunshine pop, seething screeds against fallen idols wrapped in bubblegum choruses, a fantastic duet with Neko Case, and Joe’s new wave youth rears its head on the anthemic “Hey, Guitar.” The album ends with its most affecting song, “The Purple Rain,” a heartfelt tribute to friends lost (Berman, Rhino Records founder Gary Stewart and Pernice’s cousin Joe Harvard [who founded Fort Apache Studios]) where, for once, the music is heartfelt as the words, and when the strings kick in as Joe sings “I remember you” even the driest eyes may tear up.
Who Will You Believe is out Friday (preorder), but we’re premiering an early stream of the album that you can listen to below.
Joe played Le Poisson Rouge last night and is sticking around NYC today (4/4) for an in-store performance and signing at Rough Trade tonight at 6 PM.