Review: Cass McCombs Makes the Familiar Feel New on Interior Live Oak

Cass McCombs has always felt like a musician slightly out of sync with his time, drawing heavily from an earlier era yet refusing to fade into nostalgia. Over the last twenty-plus years, the soft-spoken Gen X songwriter, equal parts sly humorist and thoughtful bookworm, has served as a keeper of the flame for artists like Lennon, Dylan, Cohen, Zevon, Nilsson, Newman, and Young. The opening track of Interior Live Oak, the funk-tinged and solemn “Priestess,” evokes the imagery of Ella Fitzgerald and John Prine, its atmosphere as vivid as a glass of lime rickey or a wild horse gallop. Much of the record could pass for something Gordon Lightfoot might have released in the 1970s. McCombs’ touchstones are so ingrained in his music they nearly vanish into familiarity, yet what emerges still feels distinctly his. Perhaps it’s because he’s matured from being a mercurial, eccentric songwriter into a truly great one, and greatness has a way of making old traditions sound new.

If the canon of postwar pop still has room for additions, Interior Live Oak is strong evidence that McCombs belongs. Though it carries plenty of humor, the album doesn’t waste a second: 16 tracks, each carefully crafted and purposeful. These aren’t experiments or half-formed sketches; they’re full songs with graceful melodies, sharp arrangements, and layered storytelling. McCombs spins character-driven narratives, timeless folk tales, and modern Americana, giving old archetypes new depth and texture. It’s the work of an artist at ease with himself, balancing ambition with experience, and it serves as an excellent entry point into his body of work.

Teaming again with longtime collaborator Jason Quever of Papercuts, McCombs shapes a sound that drifts and coils, part gentle breeze, part lurking snake. The record moves at an unhurried pace but brims with quiet tension. The variety is striking: ornate Croce-like folk, fuzzy guitar rock, shimmering soul, and expansive desert country. The production keeps things tactile, you can almost feel the fingers pressing the strings while Brian Betancourt’s basslines wander restlessly beneath it all. What seems effortless and understated is in fact packed with lyrical density, evoking the intricate wordplay of Paul Simon at his peak.

Many songwriters can ride a good hook with a handful of clever lines, but McCombs crams his tracks with full-on literature. His verses often dazzle on the surface but then keep unfolding, reframing themselves into something bigger and more profound. “Miss Mabee” turns a playful pun into a buoyant power-pop gem. The galloping “Peace” (“‘Peace’ is what we say/When we say goodbye”) reframes a casual word of parting into something heavy and moving. “Who Removed the Cellar Door?” channels Tom Petty as it leaps from basement floods to Niagara Falls in a rush of regret. There’s also the inevitable Americana tale of a young woman leaving her small town for the city, in this case “A Girl Named Dogie”, a character who resurfaces later in “Asphodel” as a mythic traveler of the underworld. Elsewhere, Lola Montez’s spider dance expands until it consumes the world, while songs like “I Never Dream About Trains” capture fragile first-person denials with aching tenderness. Often the “you” addressed in the songs is central, turning the album into a series of intimate tributes.

It’s in this direct second-person mode where McCombs’ writing shines brightest. Take “Priestess,” where he sings: “You saw that each one of us/Are opaque as woven air/Your dark humor no one could touch/From experience no one could bear.” Lines like these surface throughout, their impact strongest in the way they echo across the record as a whole. Once criticized for being too clever, McCombs now writes with seasoned wisdom, though his youthful edge still beats beneath the surface. It bursts out in “Juvenile,” a defiant anthem that lightens the heavier material around it. With Interior Live Oak, McCombs delivers a poignant requiem for a fading century anchored in tradition yet still distinctly his own.