The best word to describe José González’s newest album, “Vestiges & Claws,” is soothing. It is not difficult to imagine copies of it lining the shelves customers peruse while waiting in line at Starbucks, which isn’t a bad thing.
The album is folksy and contained, and it encourages an experience rather than a deeper analysis. The music is part expressionist, part thoughtful lyricism. González creates feelings rather than an overarching narrative. Such is the popular thing to do at present, to produce a story and write songs around it. While many other albums are novels, “Vestiges and Claws” is a collection of short stories, a culmination of thoughts.
If there’s one thing González is good at, it’s atmosphere. His music builds slowly and effectively. Even if his songs are deficient of the pressures and tensions of contemporary pop music, he is able to generate as much of an impact with his careful, gradual layers and textured musical arrangements.
Each song starts out in a similar place, though their conclusions vary to great effect. It’s just a matter of getting there. González works hard to achieve his endings, his emotional release. This is perhaps most evident in “Let It Carry You,” a song that’s resolution is buoyant in its orchestral tones.
However, this can work against the intimacy the music may attain with its listeners; at times, the songs take just too long to pull themselves together. By the time they reach the spot they want to reach, the listener may be disconnected and unavailable.
González is a self-aware soft-spoken crooner, and what he lacks in outward bravado, he makes up for in tenderness. He joins the ranks of The Lumineers and Jason Mraz with his seemingly familiar entry into the modern folk pop genre. González does not maintain the same pretentious air that accompanies many such artists. González’s new album is what happens when Sufjan Stevens meets the defter techniques of Imogen Heap.
The title, “Vestiges & Claws,” is dropped in “What Will,” a wandering and existential melody that brings to mind the primary themes of the album: the impossibility of what we want and what we will do to chase after it. This is stressed in the lines, “Refining with our paws / Fight for a common cause.” A “vestige” is something that no longer exists—we may endeavor to claw our way to our dreams, removing obstacles with tenacity and hope, but we may never receive what we desire.
You get the sense that González is toying with the idea of absolute minimum—he only utilizes what he deems necessary: acoustic guitar, shy percussion, pretty vocals and the occasional bouts of clapping. He is rather meticulous with his simplicity, and though the album doesn’t have the polish of other releases, that is part of its charm. He plays with silence and its conflict with music.
If you aren’t a fan of this sort of music, then the album will probably seem rather one-note. Its consistency tends toward flawlessness, meaning that if you don’t particularly care for the first track, you likely won’t care for the rest of “Vestiges & Claws.”
The album also lacks a sense of discovery, of experimentation. It is safe and it is more than competent. However, it lacks the various trials involved in the conception of a great addition to music. For what it is, the album definitely succeeds, but it doesn’t reach.
A working summation of “Vestiges & Claws” may be found within “Leaf Off/The Cave,” in which González pleads, “Take a moment / to reflect where we’re going.” Don’t run off, don’t give up; we’re just getting to the good part.
