Cass McCombs’ Endlessly Intriguing “Big Wheel and Others”

Thermometer Test

Right now is no time to come up short.

It's time to fight like hell for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme and cruel agenda, where the Big Lie is called a Big Lie, where facts matter, and where accountability at the polls and in the press has a fighting chance. We have our work cut out for us, and we urgently need to raise about 400,000 by Thursday, June 30, to finish our fiscal year on track and give it everything we possibly can. Please help us get there with a donation if you can right now.

$1,150,000

$1,350,000

Right now is no time to come up short. It's time to fight like hell for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme and cruel agenda, where facts matter, and where accountability at the polls and in the press has a fighting chance. We have our work cut out for us, and we still need to raise upwards of 400,000 by June 30 to give it everything we can. Please help:

Courtesy of Domino USA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Cass McCombs
Big Wheel and Others
Domino

Showing little interest in image-building, Cass McCombs has quietly compiled an impressive body of work over the last decade that affirms the viability of the old-fashioned American singer-songwriter. With Big Wheel and Others, however, he may grab the spotlight in spite of himself.

Running nearly 90 minutes, this sprawling two-disc set brims with striking songs—some of them memorable vignettes of troubled souls, some of them cryptic pronouncements—ranging from delicate and dreamy (“Angel Blood”) to ominous and brooding (“Joe Murder”) to swaggering and determined (“Honesty Is No Excuse”), all of it tied together by diffident vocals that are more tantalizing than revealing.

Highlights include a tender, toe-tapping duet with the recently deceased actress Karen Black (“Brighter!”) and “Everything Has to Be Just So,” a hallucinatory nine-minute head trip. Like M. Ward, only quieter, Cass McCombs is an endlessly intriguing troubadour.