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Chris Bathgate
A Cork Tale Wake
Quite Scientific
It would be easy to label Chris Bathgate as just another singer/songwriter, quote a lyric, footnote David Gray and call it a night. But to do that would not only be stupid, it would miss the singular beauty of Bathgate’s music. On his third full-length album A Cork Tale Wake, the Michigan-bred Bathgate checks in with a stirring collection of folky hymnals, an eleven-song procession that moves with a subtle, yet palpable urgency. “Serpentine” brings to mind Tea For The Tillerman-era Cat Stevens; “Do What’s Easy” is a gently rousing ballad (“Steal every red cent out of the wishing well/Smoke cigarettes ‘til your chest rattles like hell”); and “Restless” depicts spiritual dissatisfaction and is perfectly punctuated by a horn-filled hallelujah that finds Bathgate exclaiming, “So I know now that there is no God/…my new love is my new lord.” There’s much to admire here—the marvelous and rippling folk of “The Last Parade On Ann St.” or the churning “Smiles Like A Fist,” but A Cork Tale Wake's finest moment is the devastating “Cold Fusion (Snakes).” Spare and acoustic, this number uses its ophidian imagery as a symbol of both a damaged life and a way to slither free of it. Painting a picture of a deep and thorough addiction, Bathgate sings, “Within a tiny home/the tornado of drugs I own.” It’s a dark and baleful admission—drugs supplanting even furniture—but perhaps the most crushing revelation comes when the narrator pictures himself in the future: “I saw you on the street/In two years, Chicago/And serpents they covered me/And I screamed out/And I screamed out…” A smart narrative switch from the second to the first person might not seem like much of a device, but in the context of the song it’s a brilliant rendering of the sudden shock of self-awareness. What makes this doleful lullaby so good is that it’s not a repudiation of addiction, nor is it a call to clean up—it’s a haunting portrait of reptilian loneliness and a jarring look at personal demolition. And when, by song’s end, Bathgate sings over and over “Please stop…” the repetition of the reprise suggests a spiritual ambiguity that is either fueled by hope or simply the lack of it. Perhaps the most resonant moment recorded by anyone all year.
--Alex Green
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