Finally. After touring and fooling around with other projects the past four years since the release of his debut album Veneer, José is back with the follow up LP, In Our Nature. González said in press releases that he wanted the album to take a darker look at humanity that, as his website states, “has a darkness and a seriousness that more than often borders on what should be considered healthy.”
He begins the album asking the question, “How low are you willing to go / before you reach all your selfish goals?” and immediately puts us into a new, troubling mindset that the artist has found himself pondering. Though sticking to just his voice and the guitar, with a few slight percussive elements throughout the tracks (usually just based off of claps and tapping the side of the guitar), you can tell from the first few seconds of the album that this is going in a different direction than Veneer. This is probably a sigh of relief for most fans, who have been itching for a new set of songs from this singer-songwriters.
José González seems to incorporate a great deal of his own introspection about his place in the world, as well as a broader outlook of where society is going. On the next song, “Down the Line,” he admits, “I see problems down the line / I know that their mine.” Now, with this man’s voice, he could say pretty much anything and it would sound right, but he still takes time to really put himself into the lyrics he writes, an admirable feat for someone who’s writing in his second language.
The album still lets his unique blend of classical, latin, and modern guitar technique shine through, as well as lets him experiment with another former European pop song, this time a far darker one, Massive Attack’s “Teardrop.” Not to say that the songs he writes aren’t well written, but I found “Teardrop” to be the most powerful song on the album. He is extremely aware of the volume levels of his songs, and Massive Attack is able to produce more intensity with just his voice and the guitar than many post-rock climaxes full of 3 screaming guitars and pounding drums, just because of his controlled nature with it. Like “Heartbeats,” one can see the respect that he has for the original songs and how careful he is in crafting it to his own style.
This is an album that will definitely not fall short of people’s hopes. But González still hopes that people will listen to the words he’s saying, and that this album can perhaps make people answer the questions he has: “You’ve got a heart full of passion / will you let it burn for hate or compassion?”
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