John Wesley Harding: The Confessions Of St. Ace

I'm wrong about everything," John Wesley Harding sings on The Confessions Of St. Ace, his first album for yet another label. "I think you'll like our song, but I'm wrong." But you can't be wrong all the time, and if there's ever been a recording that should allow the rest of the world to catch up with Harding, it's this one. Of course, the same claim could be made for most of the generally reliable singer-songwriter's records, but why not make it again After the semi-conceptual, death-oriented Awake and a disc paying tribute to folk inspiration Nic Jones, the catchy, alternately funny and touching St. Ace finds Harding once again in full pop mode. Anyone who makes allusions to Frank Capra in three of his album titles knows that "pop" can also be short for populist, so it's no surprise that St. Ace takes on universal subjects from paranoia ("People Love To Watch You Die") to unrequited love ("Too Much Into Nothing"). That's nothing new, for Harding or for songwriting, but the little things make the difference, from the way the lovely Steve Earle duet "Our Lady Of The Highways" invents a new mythology for a lovers' prayer to the ghostly addition of Jimmie Dale Gilmore to "Bad Dream Baby." When dispensed by the right hands, sometimes the people's drug can be good for you. St. Ace is as quotable as it is catchy, with production that stays just on the safe side of lush and a sound that's eager to win the audience Harding has never quite found. He may not quite be eager enough to bend toward it—his lyrics freely reference both David Copperfield and Peter Murphy—but he's worth meeting in the middle.