Album review: Sturgill Simpson may have changed his name, but is the music still good?

About halfway through his new album, Sturgill Simpson sings about identity. In a tune aptly titled “Who I Am,” he tempers a sense of loss with “comfort in just knowing nothing ever stays the same.”

Well, the Breathitt County song stylist has long lived those words and then some. In just over a decade, his records have taken him from old time Americana to psychedelic country to synth-savvy rock to bluegrass. So what’s left to change? How about his very persona.

Say adieu to the Simpson you knew, at least by name. On his just released eighth album, “Passage Du Desir,” the artist is rebranding himself as Johnny Blue Skies. Seriously.

Simpson has hinted such an identity shift was in the offing. Now the songsmith who has overhauled his sound with nearly every record has done the same with his name.

But here’s the really wild thing. “Passage Du Desir” is still a very Simpson-sounding work. Stylistically, the music sounds like it could have been a link between 2014’s boldly trippy “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music” album and 2016’s brassier and more autobiographical “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth.” In essence, what we have here is a fresh moniker for a refreshed sound, or, to borrow a phrase and title from Leonard Cohen, new skin for the old ceremony.

Songs on Sturgill Simpson’s new album

In temperament, “Passage Du Desir” possesses a lightness that serves as a stark contrast to the senses of loss that seem to permeate most of its eight songs. Nothing is rushed with the phrasing of each piece unfolding like a confession. In terms of sound, it bounces around a sampler of styles that almost purposely avoid country. The deep, Waylon Jennings timbre to the singing of the newly rechristened Mr. Blue Skies, though, remains unshakeable. But what surrounds that voice may surprise you with its genre-hopping accessibility.

For instance, the album-opening “Swamp of Sadness” is ushered in on a gentle wave of accordion and strings for a feel that’s less Americana and more Euro-friendly. Still, the continental flavor doesn’t mask the homey pathos of “a drifting sailor, lost and lonely.” Similarly, “If the Sun Never Rises Again,” which outlines a retreat from a time when “the world was as cold as the wind in December,” reflects an air of vintage soul. It sounds like something Al Green might have dug into during the early ’70s, but with a more wistful air.

The drama reaches a dual apex in the album’s two lengthiest tracks, the seven-minute “Jupiter’s Faerie” and the nearly nine-minute finale “One for the Road.” The former depicts a hopeful reconciliation — or, at least, satisfactory resolution — to a busted romance that is halted when real life intervenes with devastating finality. The latter sits deeper in the ashes, an epic parting shot drawn once “all the flowers have wilted and the seeds have all been sewn.”

To separate the mood, “Jupiter’s Faerie” glides in with a Rhodes-style keyboard melody while “One for the Road” spends nearly half its running time with a solemn guitar run that sounds like Pink Floyd on a sunny day before fading into a coda of whispering voices.

In fact, the fades on most of these tunes are fascinating. “Swamp of Sadness” exits with a violin reverie steeped in a country accent that hails from a very different country (as in Eastern Europe), “Jupiter’s Faerie” winds down with a slow piano deflation and the pop savvy “Right Kind of Dream” (which recalls “Mirage” era Fleetwood Mac) dissolves into an ambient blur.

There is one curious detour from such sleek, but unsettled reflection. Standing noticeably outside the album’s ring of despair is “Scooter Blues,” a summery, three-minute escape that mirrors Jimmy Buffett in its tropical mindset and Steely Dan is its musical execution. Bonus points for Mr. Blue Skies creating a song that rhymes “Eggos,” “Legos” and “hasta del fuego.”

Will Sturgill Simpson name change affect his album, tour?

All said, “Passage Du Desir” serves an appealing and very approachable record, especially for those still offset somewhat by the synth-saturated turn of 2019’s “Sound & Fury,” the album that brought Simpson/Blue Skies most recently to Lexington for a February 2020 performance at Rupp Arena. The show fell just weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the concert industry.

How all of this will now play out in strictly commercial but non-musical terms is anyone’s guess. Introducing an established artist under a new name seems like a Sisyphean undertaking. To complicate things is a fall tour for the album that is being promoted as a Sturgill Simpson endeavor with Johnny Blue Skies as a “very special guest.”

But those are marketing dilemmas. For the rest of us in the listening trenches, “Passage Du Desir” is simply a fine slice of often elegant heart-on-the-sleeve music, even if we don’t exactly know who owns the heart on display.

An Evening with Sturgill Simpson with special guest Johnny Blue Skies

When: Sept. 27, 8 p.m.

Where: Rupp Arena

Tickets: $59.50-$222.50 through ticketmaster.com.

This story was originally published July 12, 2024 at 4:59 AM.