David Lowery’s “Fathers, Sons And Brothers” (Cooking Vinyl) is an outlier. It’s more of a memoir—and even that’s playing a bit loose with the truth. Still, it can be a challenge to set even the most disparate elements of one’s life story to music.
On just his second solo album in the 40 years since Camper Van Beethoven’s debut, Lowery clears that hurtle, moving quite nicely between acoustic, narrative-heavy story songs and tunes with more conventional verse/chorus/verse structures. Some of the best moments among the 28 tracks blur the line between the two, subversively catchy numbers like “Mexican Chickens” and “Battle Of Leros.”
Though Lowery recorded much of “Fathers, Sons And Brothers” alone during the pandemic, it contains numerous contributions from artists scattered across five time zones and three continents. The list includes guitarist Jim Dalton (Roger Clyne And The Peacemakers), bassist Bryan Howard (Slackdaddy), vocalist Lisa Kekaula (Bellrays), keyboardist Jeremy Lawton (Big Head Todd & The Monsters), pedal-steel player Matt “Pistol” Stoessel and many others. The album was co-produced by Lowery and Drew Vandenberg (Faye Webster, Of Montreal).
The Fat Angel Sings 