“Mutiny After Midnight,” is, in one sense, the most Sturgill record he’s made in a while. It is simultaneously a disco-funk project by a man who no longer answers to the name J.S. Simpson.
Certain tracks (Excited Delirium, for one) might have been left on the cutting room floor of “Sound & Fury.” Others, like Don’t Let Go, would be more at home on “A Sailor’s Guide to the Earth.”
However most of the album is, in Simpson’s own words, “pure, unfiltered, unapologetic, relentless disco-hedonism.” But the sensual self-indulgence of “Mutiny” is not simply an epicurean pursuit. The liner notes indicate that the project was to be an “open rebellion” against oppression and suppression, contrasting global darkness with the “bright state of love.”
Politically undefined, lines about ICE raids flow into jokes about Hunter Biden’s coke habit. On Excited Delirium, Simpson asks, “You got a warrant to show me?
Never mind, my hands are up and I'm down on the floor.”
Love songs range from the profane — Make America Fuk Again is the album’s opener — to the sweet. On Viridescent, Simpson proclaims, “I wanna breathe you in like air until the day I die.” Certain tracks, like Situation, would make even Sabrina Carpenter blush. Singing “stay on that D until you hit the G” while shuffling between those same two chords was a nice touch.
So JBS made a funk-inspired record full of politics and sex songs. That’s not that shocking coming from the one-time country singer who protested the CMAs and released two bluegrass records when he was set to retire from music altogether (all before changing his name and moving to France).
And so instead of wasting any more white space discussing the particulars of the album, I want to turn to what it means.
Because “Mutiny After Midnight” is cool. It takes grand narratives about Americana music and throws them into the wood chipper. Is Sturgill a country artist? Yes. Is he a psychedelic rock n’ roller? Equally yes. Unconfined by commercial category, he has consistently created music that scratches his own creative itch. What more do you want from an artist?
“Mutiny,” is therefore narcissistic in the best way. Nashville, and perhaps the broader world, asked Sturgill what he was rebelling against and just like Brando he asked “whatddaya got?” The record looks to threaten injustice everywhere with nothing but a damn good time.
“Mutiny After Midnight” is not as good an album as “Passage Du Desir,” in many boring, musicological ways. It is however fantastic in all the non-boring musical, artistic ways. Simpson wrote all the lyrics on the spot while recording, and band members came up with all their parts in the studio. As a result, many tracks feel rushed, and the jams are mostly uninteresting. Disappointing coming from one of the songwriters and one of the best live bands currently touring.
But none of that bothers me all that much. The craziest guy in Americana music put out a fusion funk record the same week America went to war in the Middle East. He leaked it two weeks early on his own YouTube channel after promising it would be a physical exclusive. With “Mutiny After Midnight,” collective sensibility goes out the window. We’re all left to dance on its ashes.