It's a big bummer that David Berman's marriage to his wife, Cassie, fell apart and that the former leader of the Silver Jews seems to be going through a midlife crisis so grim that he's written a breakup album full of songs with cheery titles such as "All My Happiness is Gone" and "Maybe I'm the Only One for Me."
But the good news is that Berman, a poet as well as a singer-guitarist who led the Silver Jews from 1989 to 2009 (initially with Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich of Pavement as members), is back at the top of his game. Real life travails are giving his crisp, self-critical songs a gravitas that's hard to come by in the indie rock world. With his deadpan vocals and a musical vocabulary that's increasingly leaning toward country music to better express home truths (try out "I Loved Being My Mother's Son," for a devastating death-of-a-parent ditty), Berman is funny, ironic, and completely serious when delivering lines like "You see the life I lead is sickening / I spent a decade playing chicken with oblivion." Life-affirming stuff!