Milk Carton Kids – Lost Cause Lover Fool

The Milk Carton Kids: Lost Cause Lover Fool

(Far Cry Records / Thirty Tigers)

CD | Vinyl | Limited LP

Out now

Martin Gray takes a listen to the seventh album of original songs by US indie folk duo Milk Carton Kids and delights in the album’s understated and blissfully hushed reverie.

In a world where it’s increasingly difficult to find total abstention from the relentless onslaught of technological overload from all directions, it is all the more important to seek a form of escape from all of that which insidiously pummels us into submission. Whatever our mood, there is always invariably a genre or style of music to happily attach ourselves to, if only by way of either stimulation, invigoration, intoxication, or, accordingly, cathartic release. Nothing else functions in quite the same way as a channel or facilitator to any one particular frame of mind.

Some of us put angry noisy aggressive/atonal shit on to purge ourselves of pent up angst and injustice, others may opt for more upbeat and happier tunes as a contrast to try and lift the mood. When we’re feeling mellow and super-chilled, we’ll seldom whack on the likes of Merzbow, Whitehouse or Neubauten when maybe something more appropriate for the mood might suffice better. Likewise, there’s music you can stick on whilst doing your household chores or stuff you want to put on to help you relax and sleep (without being a disservice to the artist in particular). And of course there’s music you can deploy insidiously to repel people because you fancy being left alone (pub landlords of course probably have long taken note of that one).

However, cynical, grumpy old bastard that I have always been, I have to admit to feeling pissed off, mutinous and angry at the state of the world and society about 90% of the time, and on some occasions I choose an appropriate genre of music to help articulate the way I am feeling: usually one which involves tinnitus-inducing face-melting decibels. But even here my perversity can often prevail, as on occasions I would say a defiant ‘fuck it’ to playing loud noisy ear-shredding stuff (the easy option) and instead opt for the complete antithesis, knowing full well that it has the opposite effect of actually calming me down and bringing on a more serene state of mind, which can only be for the greater good, I guess.

It gives me much satisfaction to say that, in the case of the latter, I have now discovered yet another artist whose music serves as a calming, soothing balm to my frazzled psyche: the Milk Carton Kids.

Milk Carton Kids :  a backstory shrouded in mystery and tragedy

So who exactly were the original Milk Carton Kids?

According to old news reports, the sobriquet was first coined in the USA as a result of a spate of mysterious disappearances involving children in the 1980s and 1990s. Their faces were reproduced on the side of milk cartons as part of a public awareness campaign initiative to jog the memories of the public. Some of the children vanished without trace during newspaper delivery rounds and were never seen again – the most prominent and well-documented of these being Eugene Martin and Johnny Gosch in 1984, with the result that a dairy in Des Moines, Iowa, had photos of the two missing boys on the sides of the milk cartons.

Here in the UK, in the mid 1990s, two very similarly tragic cases of youngsters who vanished without trace were also reported in the Birmingham area. The two boys, David Spencer and Patrick Warren, mysteriously disappeared on Boxing Day 1996, and their faces were emblazoned on milk cartons in a bid to track their whereabouts, but as feared, nothing has ever been seen of them since.

Milk Carton Kids :  the band

Thus, it’s quite curious – and intriguing – to see that a name with such tragic associations as Milk Carton Kids has since been adopted by an unassuming duo of US singer-songwriters from Los Angeles: Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan.  The duo were formed in 2011 and on this, their seventh album of original material released under that name, the duo harness their stripped-down approach to songwriting and deliver a set of well-crafted and beautifully understated acoustic indie folk numbers.

Their close-knit harmonies bring to mind the likes of the Everly Brothers, and obviously Simon & Garfunkel, as their easy-listening tunes induce in me a sense of calm and relaxed composure. I have been listening to an increasing number of folk-orientated new acts in recent years both recorded and live (many of them clearly influenced by and steeped in the Americana sub-genre), and part of the reason for that isn’t so much as my advancing age and inevitably my gradual cognitive decline – a bleak inevitability which I now have to embrace through lack of choice – but my increasing boredom, impatience and disillusionment at hearing the same contrived generic cocky mouthy shouty ‘rent-a-quote’ type indie bands (hello IDLES) that haven’t really done enough that is actually innovative to make me want to listen for longer than maybe ten minutes. And that’s being gracious.

Sometimes, just when the shit really hits the fan, it’s a blessed relief and an absolute unfettered joy to come back to the good old-fashioned values of melody and meticulous dedication to song-craft and musical simplicity. This is where the Milk Carton Kids twosome really shine and excel at their game. It’s nigh on pointless to single out any one specific song on this nine-track set here, because all of them are ravishingly pretty little vignettes all performed with poise and grace – and the minimum of pretence, contrivance and artifice. It’s as pure and unadorned as you can get, and that is a very admirable attribute indeed.

Serenity and Self-reflection

I love how when the duo’s voices come in, sometimes as subdued sighs and croons, I get this feeling of total tranquillity washing over me. Nothing here exceeds its allotted playing time. At barely 35 minutes, the album is actually over all too quickly as the tunes simply drift along like clouds. Most songs seldom outstay their welcome, each one sounding sufficiently removed from the previous so as not to render the album ‘samey’. There are even traces of early 70s Harvest/Goldrush-era Neil Young at his prime on here, particularly notable on Blinded And Smiling and the longest track, the gently ambling A Friend Like You, which is still nevertheless six minutes of pure laid-back bliss replete with gorgeous decorative mandolin touches.

The plaintively elegiac My Place Among The Stones is genuinely heartbreaking as the narrator regales us with sorrowful couplets such as ‘And they told me I’ll be going home, off to a land I have never called my home’ and ‘I have wandered, I have roamed, I have squandered all I’ve owned’. Ribbon is a touching and tender ballad to the fragility of love with its words ‘Can I wrap my arms around you, if I go, if I go? / Will the tears rise up around me, if I stay, if I stay? / Nothing ends with the ribbon around it, yes I know, yes I know’, whilst the unobtrusive banjo that adorns much of the opening track Blue Water adds a delicate bluegrass tinge to proceedings.

Throughout the album, the emphasis is on serenity and self-reflection as no single element – be it voice or instrument – feels intrusive or out of place. Perhaps its strict homogeneity and adherence to a more leisurely pace may rankle among some of those listeners who are less inclined to appreciate such beatifically calming music. But as I said earlier, there is a time and a place for putting on records like this just to remind oneself that every once in a while it’s essential to just discharge out of one’s system all of that pent-up anger and rancour at the parlous state of everything and, if only for the sake of one’s own well-being, to embrace the sounds of restraint and moderation.

And if that means playing on repeat this lovely recording from the Milk Carton Kids, then that can only be of great benefit for the mind and soul. For all its intents and purposes, Lost Cause Lover Fool is an undisputed gem.

Listen to the album here on YouTube:

Lost Cause Lover Fool is available on Bandcamp

The Milk Carton Kids official site

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Album Review by Martin Gray
Other reviews can be found on his profile here