Jim White – Misfit’s Jubilee (2020)

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The ever-elusive Americana maverick Jim White returns with his most upbeat, hallucinogenic record to date.

Known for his catalog of dark ruminations on all things Southern, White’s latest outing, Misfit’s Jubilee, features a nonstop parade of manic, blue-collar conflagrations exploring realms dark and light, mystic and mundane, cynical and heartfelt; all presented within a buoyant, hook-laden sonic framework.

Plunging headlong into Misfit’s Jubilee one central truth emerges—the further White dives into the material, the deeper said material gets, culminating with the closing couplet of epic show stoppers. First comes the sprawling kitsch of My Life’s a Stolen Picture (replete with stadium anthem chants and shout-outs to Bigfoot), but the ribald mood is quickly displaced by the most overtly political song on the record, The Divided States of America. A scathing indictment of the sorry state of affairs in his homeland, White’s deadpan delivery brilliantly underscores the banal evil at play presently in the US.