Review: BECK - "Ride Lonesome"

With “Ride Lonesome,” BECK abandons the need to reinvent himself and returns to previously explored musical territory. An album marked by divorce, maturity and more collected writing

If Alexis Petridis gives five stars to Beck’s new album, there must be a serious reason.

The critic of The Guardian he’s not the type to give out stars in vain, on the contrary. In his first entirely unreleased album for seven years, Beck maintains a very high level of quality while tackling the typical malaise of middle age: the wound of a divorce can be felt in every song, like a slow mutation rather than a sentimental chronicle.

Every Beck album brings with it the same question: which version of the eternal transformer will we find this time?

With “Ride Lonesome” he returns to the role of acoustic minstrel already successfully worn in “Sea Change” in 2002 and in “Morning Phase”. It is a return that closes, without openly declaring it, an introspective trilogy built around heartbreak and self-search.

The urge to constantly shuffle the cards seems to have weakened with age. At fifty-six, Beck no longer appears obsessed with the need to shed his skin every couple of years: he prefers to delve into the language he already knows to bring out new nuances. “Ride Lonesome” proves that cooling down is not synonymous with stagnation.

Making the relationship with “Sea Change” and “Morning Phase” even more evident is the return of a good part of the team that recorded them: Smokey Hormel, Joey Waronker, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Roger Joseph Manning Jr. and Jason Falkner, gathered in Room B of United Studios in Hollywood. Nigel Godrich, already working on Sea Change and Mutations, returns to mixing. The familiarity is felt from the start, but it never slips into the replication of an already proven formula.

“Ride Lonesome” isn’t the boldest record of Beck’s career, and he doesn’t pretend to be. Its strength lies elsewhere: in the ability to return to an already explored territory without simply retracing it. After decades spent demonstrating the elasticity of his imagination, Beck today seems less interested in yet another gimmick than in the possibility of delving deeper into a musical language he knows perfectly.

Unfortunately for Beck, the idea remains valid that his best music has often found fertile material in unhappiness. But there is a rare consolation here: “Ride Lonesome” is the sequel of a sequel that manages to stand alongside its two predecessors without living in their shadow.

SCORE: 7.50

OTHERS’ VOTES

The Guardian – Rating 10.00
Mojo – Rating 10.00
New Musical Express (NME) – Rating 9.00
Uncut – Rating 8.00
Rolling Stone (USA) – Rating 8.00
Clash Music – Rating 8.00

TO LISTEN NOW

In The Night – For Your Love – Beyond The Light

TO BE SKIPPED IMMEDIATELY

47 minutes of introspection, reflection and acoustic delicacy. No need to skip!

TRACKLIST

1. Ride Lonesome
2. Run Away
3. In The Night
4. Failed Words
5. Bleed
6. Disappearing Act
7. For Your Love
8. Slow Canyon
9. It Ends Right Here
10. Falling Through My Hands
11. If You Don’t Know What Love Is
12. Beyond The Light

DISCOGRAPHY

Golden Feelings (1993)
Stereopathetic Soulmanure (1994)
Mellow Gold (1994)
One Foot in the Grave (1994)
Odelay (1996)
Mutations (1998)
Midnite Vultures (1999)
Sea Change (2002)
Guero (2005)
The Information (2006)
Modern Guilt (2008)
Morning Phase (2014)
Colors (2017)
Hyperspace (2019)
Ride Lonesome (2026)