Dance Till All the Stars Come Down in Bloomington, MN

Three decades into the career of
the Lilac Time
, albums including 2015's
No Sad Songs
and 2019's
Return to Us
found
Stephen Duffy
and band (typically brother
Nick
and wife
Claire
) settled into a reflective, earnest folk-rock that made a point of both addressing sociopolitical tensions and championing hope. With societal woes only worsening in the interim with events like the COVID-19 pandemic and increased economic inequality, 11th album
Dance Till All the Stars Come Down
continues in that vein thematically. However, while the aforementioned releases traversed orchestral and more rustic country- and folk-inspired arrangements,
puts even more emphasis on sentiment by eliminating conventional bass and drums and by further stripping back instrumentation to acoustic guitar with touches of pedal steel and occasional banjo. Opener "Your Vermillion Cliffs" wraps rhymed credos like "It's not what happens to you/It's how you react" in a striding campfire folk before the more wistful "The Long Way" reflects on decades past, when things looked like they were getting better only to eventually reverse course again ("This may be as good as it gets/And don't waste time having regrets"). That song closes its eventually harmonized verses by stressing the importance of finding your people. Along with album contributor
Ben Peeler
, the Duffys pick up the tempo for jauntier reminiscence "Candy Cigarette" ("Nothing sweet is free") and cautionary waltz "Adios and Goodnight" ("We all need to sing in times of such sorrow"), but most of the songs here embrace a reflective midtempo as lyrics seek -- and usually find -- a positive outlook. With its layered guitars, lap steel, and plucked banjo, an exception may be the closer, "The Band That Nobody Knew," a melancholy meditation on the unreliability of memory, individually and especially culturally. On the whole,
's elegant and poignant protest makes for a strong and timely inaugural outing for
's own
Poetica
label. ~ Marcy Donelson