You wouldn’t know it by listening, but Dulling the Horns was a triumph not just because it was very good, but because there was a chance we’d never get to hear it. Two years earlier, ILYSM found Ross processing the cancer slowly eating away at his body, staring deep into the eyes of death’s potential embrace. Dulling the Horns was Ross’ attempt at saying, to borrow a phrase from Jeff Tweedy, “I survived — that’s good enough for now.” It was the type of record you make when you can still feel death itself’s breath down your neck, even if the specter has fled the scene. Now cancer-free and a new parent, Still Coming Down is Ross’ album-length way of asking himself, “Well, what now?” You’re not going to hear many direct attempts at grappling with either of those powerful forces, though; if you are, it’ll be somewhere buried underneath “You got a compass right where your heart is, you know what to do/ When you stop eating shit, they stop feeding you.”

Sonically, it’s not too different than what Wild Pink have accomplished before, a guitar-heavy, fuzzed-out collection of alt-country jams that sound exactly like the type of record Lenderman himself, along with Landon George and Xandy Chelmis of his backing band, The Wind, would appear on. Much like Dulling the Horns, it’s an unassuming record full of songs that might take more than a few listens to worm their way under your skin. It’s triumphant, but the post-near-death malaise is unavoidable: “Took the Cybertruck/ To my favorite bar, Hard Luck/ To bet on my phone and drink alone,” he sings, not too far away from that guy with the “Fuck You, Yankee Bitch” tattoo. The twangy pedal-steel and unassuming guitar worship do what they do best in bands like Wild Pink: serve as a delivery system for Ross’ musings, burying them just enough to where catching them feels like discovering sunken treasure.

That doesn’t mean these songs don’t fucking rip, though, even if you focus in on the music, and not Ross’ storytelling. Depending on your mood, you might find yourself falling into the thrall of the start-stop-start guitar stabs of “Plates Keep Spinning” or the Kennedy-themed “Round of Applause at the End of the World,” or becoming hypnotized by the Lenderman (and the small Wind) features on “Dead for a Sec,” which is, surprisingly, one of the most restrained songs on the album. Not every song can say that, though; right from the jump, “Like Water” scrapes the sky, while “500 is the New 250” oscillates between restraint and bombast before crashing headlong into a towering guitar solo outro. Still Coming Down is full of infectious moments, ready to hook you.

It’s an interesting dynamic, to be sure, one that’s perfectly nestled within the outro of “Like Water”: “Like water good and clean/ From the most fucked up looking pipe you’ve ever seen.” There’s an overarching sense that Ross is reaching a misanthropic, Lonesome Crowded West-like mindset as he examines and laments the big box stores and shitty cars of modern life, angry that there might be an afterlife waiting in place of eternal slumber, furiously telling us on “Plates Keep Spinning,” “Swear to God, I’m gonna be pissed/ If Heaven and Hell are real places/ If there’s more to do after this.” Yet, Still Coming Down still wants your love and understanding, wants you to look to the most fucked-up pipes you can find to provide you just enough salvation, bring you just enough life, to keep the plates spinning a little bit longer. Maybe Ross is sick of that routine, too, but you can tell he’s nowhere near ready to let it all crash down.

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The visual storytelling of cinema interacts with sound in underconsidered ways. David Lynch memorably said that the images and the sound were each 50% important, equally informing each other to form the whole. But it is rare indeed to hear score material that was ultimately never coupled with the intended images in the first place. James’s adventures digging into his and Reitzell’s archive have resulted in a very good follow-up to his solo career-best 2018 album Uniform Distortion and its companion, Uniform Clarity.

None of the songs on the new album are particularly unconventional, so it is puzzling to learn that the original objection from the film producers was that James and Reitzell were straying too far from what was expected. Perhaps unintentionally, Wowed Out structures this unused material more like the arc of a movie than the way many singer/songwriters or bands sequence albums.

For example, it is fairly common for albums to begin and end with catchy or noteworthy songs and test the listener’s patience or taste with a difficult middle. Wowed Out more cinematically sets the scene with the first three songs, establishing a mellow, inconspicuous even, status quo before going into dramatic and often spellbinding directions for the rest of the album. There is no muddling middle to wade through.

“Baby Dear” is pleasant enough despite the comically distracting associations the song is likely to raise for any listeners familiar with Janeane Garofalo’s “baby deer” bit on Stella. But that song, “Hands On” and “Come Again” only hint at what’s to come. “Come Again” does so, in part, by introducing the phrase “wowed out,” which will be developed later.

The overstimulation of modern life is James’s subject on both this album and Uniform Distortion. Despite this topical retread, it is a testament to his songwriting abilities that the two albums sound so different from one another. The centerpiece jam, “Home (Green),” is the longest song here and, arguably, its most arresting.

Some of the other highlights of Wowed Out combine James’s new approach to excavating songs with specific hallmarks of his and others’ musical past. For example, “Lost Child,” the only song here with no connection to the film scoring foray, samples Maxine Brown’s “Oh No Not My Baby” (Gerry Goffin and Carole King) and is one of the numbers on Wowed Out that is most directly comparable to My Morning Jacket. Specifically, the way James sings “tell me” undeniably references his delivery of “truly” from Z’s “Gideon.” Additionally, “Rewind It” imaginatively revives the lyrical theme of Uniform Distortion’s best song, “Throwback,” and includes an earworm melody that is sneakily similar to the lead vocal melody from Primal Scream’s “Autobahn 66.”

Is Wowed Out a work of “soulful psychedelia,” as it’s being promoted? Sure, that is as good a way to describe it as any. At this phase of his career, James sounds increasingly like a guide to relaxation, to being aware of rhythms and to paying attention to how cast-off sounds might become diamonds over time.

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Even during their run between 1980 and 1990, Xmal Deutschland never rose above cult status in the United States. A hidden gem on the 4AD roster, the band charted in the UK, but remained a curio for goth fans on this side of the Atlantic. Perhaps the all-German lyrics posed a barrier for some audiences, but they also barely toured the United States in the ‘80s. Instead, collectors found their way to Xmal Deutschland’s acclaimed first two albums – Fetisch (1983) and Tocsin (1984) – via mixtapes and specialty radio programs.

Four decades since Xmal Deutschland last played the United States, vocalist Anja Huwe is playing a series of shows celebrating Xmal classics and her solo work. On a cool, late summer evening, Huwe played an early show at Portland’s Star Theater in front of a small but adoring group of fans. Dressed in a frilly black jacket and leather pants, Huwe looked and sounded amazing as she and her band tore through nearly 90 minutes of music.

Huwe began the show with “Boomerang” from Fetisch and quickly put aside any fears the show would be a tired nostalgia retread. Now 68 years old, Huwe projected poise and fury, lighting up the stage with dance moves, poses and electric energy. She barely addressed the crowd, mainly thanking folks for coming out and pausing to clasp hands with the people up front.

Supported by bassist Mona Morr and The March Violets guitarist Tom Ashton, Huwe juggled Xmal songs with those from her 2024 solo album Codes. These newer songs, such as “Living in the Forest” and “Pariah,” fit right in with the Xmal canon. However, Huwe knew what the fans wanted and Xmal material dominated the second half of the set.

Though Huwe didn’t play every Xmal Deutschland song, fans who waited decades to hear things like “Mondlicht,” “Qual” and “Incubus Succubus” did not leave the club disappointed. But her selection makes sense, as Huwe ceased playing music for nearly 40 years after the demise of her band.

Huwe was not going through the motions, as musicians sometimes do. The performance felt imbued with joy. Even after the band left the stage and the house music came on, the few people who remained applauded hard enough to get Huwe to return and play “Orient.” Though more people should have come out to see Huwe, the intimacy of the venue and the ferocity of her performance made the multi-decade wait worthwhile.

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This is Dolly (Pipay Kipay), a trans woman who, after turning on a wireless microphone, begins delivering a rehearsed speech of welcome to the travelers inside the van. It’s a group revealed in reverse shot to be Chinese tourists. They hover between politeness and disinterest.

The scene lingers long enough for Dolly to crack a joke about the heat. After a transition to the city bustle outside the van, a voice via loudspeaker tells a quickly assembling crowd that only one bottle of water is allowed per person. The film then cuts from behind the film’s title (the name displayed first in pastel blue, then pink) to the quiet sprawl of a country club and its carefully manicured golf courses.

It’s a setting given further portraiture through a series of meticulously designed scenes that gradually progress from inside Manuel’s chosen framing, as he utilizes the squarish 4:3 aspect ratio preferred by many contemporary arthouse filmmakers. The mise-en-scène pops with color. The sound design, often cued to razor sharp visual cuts, is vivid and crisp. As the movie’s title leaves the screen the water sprinklers burst to life. Unlucky city dwellers get one bottle of potable water a day, but the green turf of this refuge for the rich (and those employed to service them) gets all the liquid sustenance it can soak up.

Exploring the class divide is nothing new in cinema, but Manuel tackles the subject with patience and precision. Expanding on his 2020 short film of the same title, the director exposes the ugliness festering underneath the picturesque calm of this perceived refuge with a steady hand, adopting the leisurely pace of the film’s locale and capturing its nuances as the diseased underbelly gradually emerges.

This slow, dark turn is alluded to early through a shot of mangoes rotting on the ground, the fruit discovered by Isabel (Jorrybell Agoto), a new worker at the club. She’s a “tee girl,” the slang term for the young pastel blue-clad children that repeatedly tee up the yellow golf balls for the moneyed denizens who frequent the place.

Garbed in pink, the older women caddies constantly accompany the golfers. This is in contrast to the tradition in the USA, a difference that’s pointed out to a caddy by Clara (Carmen Castellanos), a sullen Filipino expat living in New York City who has returned home for a visit and is being recruited by her Uncle Renato (Carlos Siguion-Reyna) for a position in his golf equipment business.

Isabel is a sort of tour guide through this world. She’s from the Ilocos region of the Philippines, as is the country club’s president, Dr. Palanca (Teroy Guzman). As Isabel tees up balls for him, they converse in Ilocano and she is initially drawn to Dr. Palanca. Described by Manuel as a coming-of-age story, Filipiñana handles youthful disillusionment with an engaging duality, as the economically constrained but intrigued Isabel is contrasted with the empowered but largely disinterested Clara.

Hoping to give back a golf club left behind by Dr. Palanca, Isabel wanders the grounds of the facility, incrementally learning more about him on her journey, and curiosity curdles into disdain. There’s also a general feeling of unease as the film progresses, linked in part to a parallel (if backgrounded) search for a missing girl. This steady increase of disturbing atmosphere is productively in sync with Manuel’s purposeful slow cinema pacing.

There are a few moments where an explosive release of tension feels imminent amid the constant ritual and hierarchy (the guests get air conditioning while the staff makes do with electric fans), but Manuel denies the satisfaction. Instead, Clara discovers something terrible in the deep grass while retrieving a lost ball, an act of dour defiance after her uncle gave her permission to take a mulligan.

Filipiñana, which was executive produced by veteran Chinese director Jia Zhangke (who also served as a mentor to Manuel), ends in a manner that’s both meditative and troubling, perhaps even shocking. The pacing will likely ensure that the film’s fandom will be modest but passionate, and yet the class critique and the sting of political protest should broaden the appeal beyond those lovers of the rigorously formalist. It is a movie as beautiful as it is discomfiting.

Photo courtesy of Kino Lorber

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The story begins in the ‘70s with Mahanandia, a street artist of the Dalit caste, who faces the trials and tribulations of growing up within the Indian caste system from a young age. “Dalit,” in the Indian subcontinent, is the term for the group that constitutes the lowest rank of the Indian caste hierarchy. The plight of the Dalits, stemming from a social institution that reinforces exclusion and untouchability, serves as the connective tissue of the film’s central conflict and casts a pervasive shadow in young P.K.’s mind, where he constantly battles a sense of inner worthlessness. During his childhood, an astrologer prophesied that his future wife would hail from a faraway land, be born under the star sign Taurus, be musically inclined, and be the owner of a jungle. One day, while drawing portraits for people, he meets Lotta, a Swedish woman traveling around the world. She sits down in front of him for a quick sketch, a brief encounter that goes on to reshape the course of their lives. Lotta matches nearly everything the astrologer had foretold, and they spend the next few weeks getting acquainted and slowly growing fond of each other. When Lotta heads home to Sweden, P.K. decides to follow her the only way he can afford to: by cycling all the way from India to Europe.

Shots of young Mahanandia’s travels and obstacles are intercut with interviews with present-day Mahanandia as he revisits the journey. Present-day Lotta soon joins the picture; however, the intercutting between the unfolding story and the two sets of interviews only gets clumsier afterward. Strikingly, it leaves out multiple questions modern-day Lotta might reasonably have been asked, most notably her feelings and reaction to being told by a stranger that an astrologer had predicted that she would become his future lover. To its credit, however, the film does manage to end on a sincere emotional high, with Mahanandia expressing the euphoria of his first kiss with Lotta after a lifetime shaped by internalized shame and a sense of inferiority.

The film leans heavily on the theme of human resilience and focuses on hitting all the familiar beats of an “indomitable human spirit” tale. However, that overreliance on the formula comes at the expense of providing anything truly substantive about each of the characters we see on screen. The film lightly touches on the plight of the Dalit in the Indian subcontinent but hardly interacts with it any further than treating it as a background blur for the story.

Compared to films using a similar interview-and-reenactment approach, The Cycle of Love seemingly has no ambitions to push the boundaries of the form; rather, it aims for a competent enough, blemish-free execution. The film is content with letting the story do the heavy lifting, rather than supplementing it with any sharper ideas. Viewers drawn purely to its story will find it moving nonetheless, while viewers expecting something more formally inventive will come away finding a sanitized film that lacks any personality.

Photo courtesy of Variance Films

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The release bounces between piano solos, quartet playing, vocal pieces and trio playing. This already gives the listening experience a dynamic appeal. It further jumps between standards like “Stella by Starlight” and original tracks like “Whispers of Love.” The first track is a solo piece, so it reminds the listener what Alexander can do without anyone else to consider. “Bemused (solo improv I)” has a pop-jazz tone to it. Unlike his previous material, the tune here is pleasant but nothing amazing or groundbreaking (hence the “pop-jazz” descriptor). Even Norah Jones’ pop-jazz style has a bit more bite or emotion in it. However, later, we get “Bemused Again (solo improv II)” towards the end of the album. It is a brisk and wind-swept version of the first track. It seems a more successful example of his technical skills as well as his sophisticated ear.

When a strong solo musician gets together with a larger group or with instruments they aren’t used to playing with, interesting things can happen. It’s hard to think of Bill Evans accompanying a singer. It is also a little bit of an imbalance when Alexander accompanies the two vocalists. “My Funny Valentine” is a great tune, yet Fischer isn’t quite the right match for the pianist’s sonic sensibilities. This is not meant to diminish the singer’s contributions, but rather to identify the need for more thought in what kind of ensemble is right for this young-ish musician. After all, he’s still learning and exploring the sounds that chime the best in certain situations.

The other vocalist, Alita Moses, appears a bit more secure on her tune. “Whispers of Love” is not the most original title, yet the style and the balance between singer and instrumentals sound stable enough. Moses is soulful without being overly sentimental. Her voice matches the stronger romantic playing style affected by Alexander. Overall, the piece works well enough as a good start into the accompaniment territory of piano playing. Unlike other pianists like Graham Harvey, best known for accompanying singer Stacey Kent, Alexander requires some practice in shifting his modes of playing. His soloing can outshine the singer, is the evident conclusion after listening to both tracks.

Turning to the guest saxophonist, Shaw seems to be better integrated. The quartet formation here is a sturdy one to highlight Alexander’s communication with the group as a whole. Furthermore, the fact that Alexander switches to an electric keyboard sound funkifies these pieces nicely. Now, these aren’t foot stomping tracks that will have you shaking your groove thang, but they deserve a listen. These three pieces also fit well with his trio material. An easy listening style emerges out of them, allowing for an ease of accessibility. This is a smart move as it offers quickly acceptable tracks. When one is trying to broaden their musical horizons, it can soften the blows of “unusual” or “outside the box” material to have more traditional stuff. Alexander, purposefully or not, situates two vocal tracks within an album of stronger instrumental material. So even if those two pieces aren’t that flattering, the album on the whole isn’t immediately discarded as a miss.

Celestial Keeper isn’t too big a shift in terms of tone and style. His exploration into ensemble playing and accompaniment are valiant efforts – the former more than the latter. And one shouldn’t think of this release as a failure either. It is impressive to see a young-ish artist allow himself the freedom to be vulnerable. He doesn’t hide his attempts to shake things up a little. That, itself, deserves praise, even if the tracks are not quite the slam-dunks he envisioned.

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The main story involves a treacherous rabbit hole that Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) spirals down after his wife, Alice (Nicole Kidman), admits to a fantasy about another man. The source material is Arthur Schnitzler’s 1926 novella Traumnovelle, but instead of Vienna in the ‘20s during Carnival, Eyes Wide Shut is set in New York City in the ‘90s over the Christmas holidays.

Bill works as a high-society doctor who frequently makes house calls, placing him in intimate proximity to prominent members of the city’s elite circles. At the same time, he never truly belongs to these elevated echelons and aches to rise above his station. Wandering the streets aimlessly one night, haphazardly fueled by jealousy triggered by his wife’s admission – and flirting with the idea of cheating on her – he stumbles upon an opportunity to infiltrate a masquerade party at a mansion where the guest list includes members of a diabolical secret society. Identified as an intruder, Bill is allowed to leave, but soon realizes he’s being followed as he attempts to investigate the bizarre event he just witnessed. Bill finally confesses his own temptations and outlandish transgressions to his wife, and they resolve to put it all behind them.

The true power of the film, which has only grown in the years upon its release, lies in its insights into the various, conspiring predatory networks Bill bumps into during his flailing quest. For instance, when the film first came out, the almost 20-minute masked orgy sequence seemed over-the-top, even fantastical, implying the whole night could potentially be a bad dream. However, in the intervening years, emerging allegations about what the grotesquely rich get up to have entered mainstream consciousness thanks to revelations about everything from disturbing “freak offs” to horrifying particulars in the Epstein files. It wouldn’t be the first time Kubrick was light-years ahead of his time and attempting to warn us of despicable behavior that our complicity has allowed to fester.

It’s worth noting that Bill goes through a tortured experience as the film’s tension slowly ratchets up, but Alice remains poised and calm throughout. She comes across as vaguely unsatisfied, but also fairly sure of herself, in a performance boosted by Kidman’s knack for subtle intensity. Bill, on the other hand, is revealed to be extremely insecure during his quixotic pursuit for more clout. He seems helplessly frustrated that he can’t control his wife’s every impulse – even her dreams – and he appears to aspire to be a dominating force with the sort of unquestioning authority his friend and patient Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack) effortlessly commands. However, Bill is not in the same club and never will be, and the hubris he displays in neglecting to know his place within this ecosystem puts his whole family in grave jeopardy.

Bill is the audience proxy, and Cruise’s performance works best in this precise vein; he often comes across like a video game avatar as we follow him around on an odyssey of awed discovery. Trying to get to know Bill beneath the surface is far more difficult due to Cruise’s strangely subdued portrayal. In Born on the Fourth of July and Magnolia, Cruise seemed game to opening himself up; here his character remains repressed, even when alone. When Bill crumbles at the end, it strikes a false note. Did Kubrick meet his match and encounter Cruise’s renowned iron will in the form of closed stubbornness, or was it Kubrick’s choice to convey the character as a soulless husk? Behind-the-scenes lore of the level of control Kubrick had over Cruise and Kidman – a real-life couple at the time – suggests he could freely manipulate them. Perhaps Cruise confronted aspects of himself that he simply couldn’t face.

Kubrick had been interested in adapting the source novella since the ‘60s, and there were many other actors considered and imagined for the lead role. Woody Allen, Steve Martin and Harrison Ford would’ve all given wildly different interpretations of this oddly naïve, somewhat impotent character. We may never know why Kubrick finally settled on Cruise, other than his blinding star power, but the fact that Cruise is also the most famous member of the Church of Scientology may be a key to a deeper understanding of the motivation behind Kubrick’s experiment.

Not only is this modern religion often accused of exploiting its followers, even putting them in peril if they disobey rules or dare to expose its clandestine inner workings – reflecting certain aspects of the plot– but this project may have also been intensely personal for Kubrick. His daughter, Vivian, joined L. Ron Hubbard’s organization in the ‘90s, which apparently caused extreme distress for the director. Was this film, in the end, a kind of cinematic letter to her and loaded with Easter eggs only she would fully understand?

In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, two rich old white men seen at a party near the beginning of the film reappear at the end to escort Bill and Alice’s daughter Helena (Madison Eginton) away. This creepy addition, spotted in the background by shrewd viewers – which includes Helena fawning over a baby carriage and a Barbie doll before disappearing – has been seen as a hint that Helena becomes a sacrifice to appease an angry cult or that she was always part of a horrible master plan.

The most accessible layer of the film depicts a married couple who reconcile after hitting an inevitable bump in the road. During this detour, the password that gets Bill into the party – “Fidelio” – actually has Latin roots that mean “faithful.” Also, Beethoven’s only completed opera, Fidelio, was about a woman who loyally rescues her husband from a prison before a corrupt government can kill him. While on this roundabout journey, Bill learns that commitment to his family is far more important than allegiance to some faceless cabal devoid of humanity.

In one of the last scenes, Victor tells Bill he’s reading too much into everything; he proposes the masked ritual was a charade designed to scare him. The sequence plays with our own convictions as Victor gaslights Bill amid a film full of hypnotizing illusions obscuring nefarious activities and clues that support the notion of ubiquitous double lives. The blindfolded piano player Nick Nightingale (Todd Field) – willing to turn a blind eye as long as he gets paid – and a piano score that feels like being repeatedly poked in the back add to a coded message alerting us to great dangers if we choose to ignore the wolves in sheep’s clothing amassing around us.

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The common knock on Interpol — that they’re rip-offs of old post-punk bands, namely Joy Division — never really applied to them in the first place and feels more and more inapplicable as they’ve continued making music, and it’s especially the case with This Mirror Weighs a Ton. For however indebted they are to post-punk, Interpol have values atmospherics and filling the negative space in their songs in a way that often found them veering towards some estimation of shoegaze. They don’t get quite as gaze-y on Mirror, but they take great care with the arrangements, which have a robust quality that suits the band well. From the gradual build on the initially spare title track to the flourishes of synth, piano and programmed drums that are scattered throughout, Interpol present themselves as a band interested in tinkering with their sound, not running away from what drew people to them in the first place but adding on to it. To a certain extent, they will always “sound” like Interpol: Banks’ vocal delivery is so distinct that anything he sings will “sound like Interpol.” But with a few exceptions (“See Out Loud,” “Darling Thoughts”), Interpol rarely play to expectations here.

Indeed, if one were looking for signs of Interpol’s continuing maturity, This Mirror Weighs a Ton is rife with them. It can occasionally feel forced, such as in the more piano-focused arrangements that, intentionally or not, recall the band’s former rehearsal-space partners The National, who have since asserted themselves as representative of the new “urban chic” image that Interpol themselves once held. On the other hand, Banks’ lyrics, previously a source of mockery for their unattached, mashed-together imagery, feel more connected to the world around him than ever before.

Banks expresses unease and anxiety throughout the album, prompted by the notion of constant surveillance (the title track) and the unceasing encroachment of technology into every aspect of our lives (“Iron City”). Deception lies around every corner, whether it’s the world not appearing to be what it seems (“Bird and the Serpent”) or Banks himself putting on airs as a way of just getting by (“Ever the Actor”). These emotions have arguably popped up in prior Interpol albums, but whereas Banks used to play with them while keeping them at a distance, he digs into them here to express something more tangible. And it’s that tangibility that makes This Mirror Weighs a Ton worth returning to.

For as strong of an album as Mirror is, it’s not perfect. The band’s efforts here can feel labored, far more deliberate than the lightning-in-a-bottle energy of their early work. What’s more, the band allows themselves to meander on songs in a way that can occasionally drag the album down, and the experience of listening to it feels longer than it actually is as a result. Despite that, This Mirror Weighs a Ton is the most engaging Interpol album in years, at least since 2014’s El Pintor if not earlier. Interpol just keep on going, maintaining consistency even through personnel changes and a music industry in upheaval. Even if the moments of brilliance that once came so naturally are harder to conjure, still pulling them off is an appreciable talent.

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Dent May’s lonely method of making records has always been a personal choice. In the past, he’s preferred to put it all together himself, adding the odd live drum pattern or string segment as an overdub closer to the end of the process while keeping ultimate control in his own hands. On The Big One, Dent May went in the opposite direction. For many artists, the choice often comes down to economics, but Dent May owns the studio he used, L.A.’s Honeymoon Suite, with Paul Cherry, who fills the role of producer on the album. The impetus for working collaboratively rather than micromanaging the songs came from a shift in his attitude toward songwriting. The songs on The Big One began as sketches he roughed out as voice memos. He then took those memos to friends and asked them to work on them with him.

The results are a leap beyond what usually comes out of Dent May records, still recognizable as coming from the same writer but richer in tone and substance. The Big One finds Dent May toning down the previous power-pop influences in favor of something that comes across more like paisley-tinged chamber pop, full of ‘60s folk-rock tones, crystalline guitar figures, and warm, emphatic strings. Some, like “I Remember…” and “Second Wind,” have upbeat rhythms with McCartney-esque melodic forms. Others, like “Silly Me” and “Such a Thrill,” are slower and feature Dent May emoting languidly in a reedy falsetto.

A lot of it feels tailor-made for a modern sensibility that favors nostalgia mining. “I-55” is old-school yacht rock complete with a blues-pop guitar line midway through that brings to mind the sort of thing Clapton might have tossed off with Derek and the Dominos. “I Don’t Like You (But I Love You)” is the sort of ‘70s AM radio pop number you expect to go viral eventually on some coming-of-age soundtrack, and the squelchy wah-guitar running under the last third of the song is the closest May comes to bringing back the disco flavor that has run through some of his previous records. At first blush, it’s all charmingly old-fashioned, the perfect sort of record for people who love to describe themselves as “an old soul.”

Thematically, though, there’s a lot of regret running through The Big One. The title track itself is proof of this; May talks about how the titular earthquake is coming for California and how he’ll probably die unfulfilled, having never found love or meaning. It’s a song that showcases the dichotomy between May’s often-weepy delivery and how buttery-soft his vocals are at the same time, smooth but depressed. Elsewhere, he employs two main constructions in his writing to channel this theme of regret. The first is his ambiguity over his own sadness. “I Want to Believe” frames this as “Will this sadness linger?/ Hell, I don’t know.” “Silly Me” spins that as “Will I find an answer to the questions in my mind?/ Never know/ That’s how it goes.” The other bit that May favors is “I wanted to [x] but now I [y],” which he uses primarily in “I Want to Believe” and “Here We Go Again.” This includes lines like “I want to believe/ But lately I’m just not quite sure of anything” from the former and “I wanna run through the city streets/ And act like a fool/ But I’m only riding in the backseat/ Taking in one hell of a view” in the latter.

May deviates from these pillars enough that his own internally constructed cliches don’t drag him down. “Second Wind” finds him dragging his sorry carcass out of bed and getting things accomplished. “Tell ‘Em I Said Hi” flips this on its head, and becomes the loveliest, most delicate song about passing on your regrets and staying home from a party. “Last Night I Saw a UFO” represents the biggest difference from the norm on The Big One, being a song about being abducted by a UFO, complete with a keyboard line that is remarkably “alien” coded. Even here there’s a note of regret and longing; the song’s narrator notes that his friends don’t believe him, and he ends the song begging the aliens to carry him away for good. For the most part, though, May sticks to the script, weaving songs of loss, longing and looking for love.

Sometimes it gets all a bit precious, but for the most part The Big One succeeds as a throwback pop nugget. It does away with Dent May’s old power pop urges and dials back the disco to a bare minimum. What’s left is charming and disarming, old-fashioned singer-songwriter pop like they used to make half a century ago. With May in sole control, the move into this sort of form might have felt airless, but with the record’s newfound collaborative nature, the songs have an organic liveliness that makes them feel lived-in and real. It’s not precisely innovative, but it’s got a whole lot of soul.

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Throughout their long and tumultuous hike, both Raynor and Moth endure different financial, social and age-related hardships. As they travel through different places, we witness how, despite less than robust stamina, they refuse to give up and learn to adapt to their surroundings. Along the way, they meet and socialize with people from all walks of life, some showing empathy for their situation while others dismiss them immediately. There’s a very amusing encounter early on in which Moth meets a rich couple and convinces them that he’s the famed poet Simon Armitage so he can get access to their high-end house that somehow features a massage parlor.

It’s a shame that the light-hearted thoughtfulness of those early encounters doesn’t carry through to the rest of the movie. The narrative beats start to feel repetitive and sometimes grind the pace to a halt, desperately rehashing the same trials, tribulations and triumphs, to the point that they become banal. Anderson and Isaacs are the real saving grace, though, as they at least show interest in approaching the plot elements from different angles. Raynor finds peace and consolation in nature, but director Marianne Elliott’s images don’t convey much of the soulfulness that Raynor has supposedly attained, while Moth’s guiding compass is Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, which is interesting but doesn’t really go anywhere.

It’s baffling, really, that The Salt Path struggles so much to make its narrative interesting. The memoir itself on a surface level can be grouped with other similar stories such as Into the Wild, Wild and Nomadland, but it also stands on its own due to its incorporation of elements of travel and nature literature. Of course, one cannot ignore the elephant in the room: the disputed events upon which The Salt Path is based. In July 2025, shortly after the movie’s British release, Chloe Hadjimatheou of the British newspaper The Observer investigated the events of the memoir. To cut the story short, reports of embezzlement, deception and financial malfeasance overshadowed the release of the movie and dominated the headlines for a while. Those concerns aren’t addressed here, as the movie was made before the allegations dropped, which is a shame. Ambiguity about what was fact and what was fiction in the story would have made for a far more compelling story, if a darker one.

The Salt Path has a strong foundation of a crowd-pleasing, life-affirming survival story that can provide hope to anyone going through hard times, but aside from its strong performances, it unfortunately falls short, content to give us the same ho-hum arc of many other, better-told survival stories, of both the true and fictional varieties.

Photo courtesy of Ahoy Associates Entertainment

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