Beck 9/18/26

Beck- Ride Lonesome (Album).

 Ride Lonesome is Beck’s fifteenth album and his first batch of new songs since Hyperspace in 2019. If you came for the goofy, genre-hopping Beck, this isn’t that. This is the sad, acoustic Beck of Sea Change and Morning Phase, with a lot of the same people back in the room (Smokey Hormel, Joey Waronker, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Roger Joseph Manning Jr., Jason Falkner) and Nigel Godrich mixing. Beck has said he finished a version of it years ago, shelved it, and went back to strengthen the songs. Twelve tracks, all of them slow.

“Ride Lonesome” opens with pedal steel, soft drums, and a hazy, dusty feel, kind of like a Western score drifting in from another room. The lyric is about riding alone, crying a river, and following it home. It’s an easy, comfortable way into the album, and the vocal harmonies are lovely. There’s also a Sierra Ferrell duet version out there if you want a second pass.

“Run Away” is prettier than I expected. It has harp, piano, glockenspiel, and little flickers of synth under a sweetly rising California folk melody. The words are all resignation, about having nothing left to say and driving through the city with the headlights off. It’s a grim lyric on a gorgeous tune, and that mismatch works.

“In the Night” is the eerie one. Arpeggiated guitar, a brittle melody, and strings that hover like a shadow, very Nick Drake. The lyrics are about darkness burying the lies people tell. It’s the song for 3 a.m.

“Failed Words” starts on a hazy piano and swells into something almost orchestral. It feels like an old ’70s AM-radio ballad, and the song is about running out of things to say as everything comes apart. It’s a small story with a big sound.

“Bleed” is Beck’s baritone stacked on itself, so it echoes like a choir of sad angels. He sings about not knowing how to feel and about feeling like he’s been here before, and he’s done with the sacred cows. Neil Young energy. It’s a good song, but I’d say it’s the one that adds the least to the album. It’s the “here we go again” moment.

“Disappearing Act” mixes chamber folk and art pop, with a little bluesy twang and a sense of heading straight into a storm. It was the third single, and it’s one of the more interesting turns in the middle of the record.

“For Your Love” begins with strings and leans funereal. It’s about wandering through ruins for someone waiting down in the lowlands. It’s beautiful and heavy, and it makes what comes next hit harder.

“Slow Canyon” is the best song here. Picked acoustic guitars, slide guitar, a little organ, and woodwinds drifting in the background. Most of the album looks back at a relationship that’s over, but this is about wanting someone right now, with a chorus that’s about as plain as it gets. After all the sighing, that rush of want feels great.

“It Ends Right Here” starts with simple guitar strums and could slip right past you. Stick with it, because around the two-minute mark it opens up into something much bigger.

“Falling Through My Hands” is the sneaky one. It sounds like a music box, with Beach Boys-style harmonies, woodwinds, and harmonica that Beck plays himself. The lyrics look back on the happy early days of a relationship that’s slipping away, but the melody sounds like a county fair. It’s got the catchiest hook on the album.

“

If You Don’t Know What Love Is” is the piano ballad. The vocal sits right up front, a little regretful, and it’s quiet enough that you have to let it do its thing.

“Beyond the Light” closes things out at about five and a half minutes. The narrator drives toward the horizon and replays the end of everything, and it’s a slow, steady build that pulls the whole album together. Ending on something that feels like healing is a nice touch.

Overall, this is a gorgeous, carefully made record, and it knows what it is. The trouble is it knows it a little too well. If you’ve heard Sea Change, you’ll recognize the shapes, and a lot of these songs share the same tempo, the same reverb, and the same kind of sad, so the middle stretch can blur. It’s also pretty safe for a guy who built a career on not being safe. But it’s warmer and more hopeful than its older siblings, and when it breaks pattern, like on “Slow Canyon” and “Falling Through My Hands,” it’s wonderful. It’s a late-night headphones record, and I’d take it a few songs at a time.

Verdict: Give It A Shot

Personal Favorites: “Slow Canyon,” “Falling Through My Hands,” and “In the Night”