Birmingham, Alabama-based singer-songwriter Duquette Johnston has released a handful of albums in the 21st century, with The Social Animals his latest, available now on LP, CD, and digital through Single Lock Records. Although its contents are heightened by a sharp band that includes Emil Amos of the Holy Sons on bass and Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth on drums, it’s ultimately Johnston’s songs, vocals, and guitar that shape the contents into an emotionally cohesive whole.
Back in the 1990s, when he was in the Merge Records indie act and eventual Capitol Records’ signees Verbena, Duquette Johnston was known as Daniel Johnston. Upon exiting that band and striking out on his own, he adopted a fresh handle, and anyone familiar with “Speeding Motorcycle” will likely agree that his choice was a sensible one.
Johnston’s solo debut Etowah arrived in 2006, but only after it’s maker navigated personal struggles including incarceration (the album’s title references the Etowah County Correctional Facility where Johnston was sentenced in relation to a drug charge). Two more albums followed: the digital-only Ragged & Fancy in 2010 and the multiformat Rabbit Runs a Destiny three years later, with the promotion of the latter impacted by the serious bacterial infection his wife suffered after the birth of their first child.
As Johnston focused his attention on caring for his wife and raising his son, he opened the art gallery-clothing store-performance venue-community space Club Duquette in Birmingham in 2016, and was writing songs along the way that became The Social Animals, the album cut in 2017 with John Agnello producing and keyboardist Seth Brown and guitarist David Swatzell rounding out the core band.
While Etowah and Rabbit Runs a Destiny are both solid records (I’ve yet to soak up Ragged & Fancy), The Social Animals registers as an uptick in terms of overall quality, partly due to how the dual-guitar full-band heft that’s on immediate display in opener “Year to Run” points in a direction other than the anticipated singer-songwriter terrain.
Not that Johnston has jettisoned that approach. “Baby Loves a Mystery,” for one example, begins with the artist strumming and singing by his lonesome. Bass and drums gradually enter the scheme however, as do the vocals of Bekah Fox, Najee Waters, and Rachael Roberts, their voices contributing to the record’s welcome, recurrent fullness.
The Social Animals’ trajectory additionally includes a few passages reminiscent of Neil Young, a similarity established in Johnston’s prior work but less directly taggable here, a wholly positive progression. But even better is the sturdy, unfussy melodic rock of “Whiskey and the Wine,” a song fortified with Brown’s heartland-esque organ and backing vocals that are abundant yet restrained.
“Holy Child” throws an appealing spotlight on Johnston’s songwriting, which in this instance is decidedly ’60s pop in comportment but with an infusion of ’00s indie flavor (like he could’ve been labelmates on Sub Pop with The Shins). “Motorcycles” slows down, adds a little twang and then drives it all home in the chorus. And “To My Daughters” kicks into a higher gear, in the process reminding me a bit of Luther Russell’s work, a resemblance that’s only deepened in the dynamic breadth of “Forgive Me.”
There’s an undercurrent in “Mystics” and “Run With the Bulls” that’s almost neo-psych, an unsurprising twist given that Aussies The Church are a cited influence on the album. “Fortunate Ride” swings the trajectory back toward the heartland, and then “Tonight” dishes a spirited singalong that’ll surely go down a storm on the live stage. It ends The Social Animals on an engagingly upbeat note, the album succinctly reinforcing the verve of Duquette Johnston’s artistry.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
