The prolific MC Taylor is a North Carolina-based musician with a sonorous but easy-going mission: to transform his inner questing into what sounds like mellow southern country-rock tunes, delivered in the off-hand manner of Dylan and cut through with humid soul. Taylor’s spiritually restless ballads remain down-to-earth as he tries to square the lifestyle of a touring troubadour with his responsibilities as a father, husband and human being.
Terms of Surrender finds him grappling with more doubt and self-excoriation than usual, adding more roll, more electric piano and more textural detail to his already expansive roots music. A loose, wet sloshing opens Old Enough to Wonder Why, on which Taylor’s falsetto combines with uneasy instrumentation. Whip, meanwhile, essays a kind of curdled spiritual funk.
Taylor is joined by his usual Hiss bandmates, but there are notable personnel tweaks: on backing vocals, a discreet Greek chorus effect comes from the wonderful Jenny Lewis (“did you cross that line?” she accuses at one point). The National’s busy polymath Aaron Dessner is producer, bringing this excellent album, full of fear and succour, into focus.
