Passage Du Desir Johnny Blue Skies / Sturgill Simpson

Album review

Sturgill Simpson has always seemed allergic to pigeonholing. While his fantastic 2016 album A Sailor's Guide to Earth won a Grammy for Best Country Album, it didn't fit neatly into that genre (and certainly didn't get mainstream radio play), weaving in major contributions from the Dap-Kings. And lest Nashville start to get too chummy, Simpson swerved far left with his next record, Sound & Fury, a scorching blast of ZZ Top-style rock 'n' roll spiked with funk and prog. sed or surprisingly open-minded—nominated it in both the country and rock categories.) More recently, he's spent a few years rolling in bluegrass and told Rolling Stone in 2021 that The Ballad of Dood & Juanita would be "the last Sturgill record."

Apparently sticking to his word, Passage Du Desir is released under the name Johnny Blue Skies—a character Simpson introduced in an insert that came with A Sailor's Guide to Earth, which included the phrase "Beware the dread pirate Johnny Blue Skies." He employed the name in 2023 for "Use Me (Brutal Hearts)," a shimmering disco-pop collaboration with Diplo and Dove Cameron; that track was a red herring in terms of his latest move. "Swamp of Sadness" and "Who I Am" revisit his early work, leaning into the truly classic country of Waylon and Haggard and pushing Simpson's richly toned vocal to the front—no belting needed. On gorgeous "Jupiter's Faerie," he sings about trying to reconnect with someone who had fallen out of his life, only to find out they "chose to check out and move on/ I guess the pain became the only thing/ Each and every day would bring." The second chorus is epic, with laser-show guitar, luxe strings and Robbie Crowell on keys.

"If the Sun Never Rises Again" feels akin to the R&B soul of A Sailor's Guide to Earth. "Scooter Blues" chugs in with a countrified riff on T. Rex's "Bang a Gong (Get It On)" before settling into a J.J. Cale breeze, with Simpson imagining a different life for himself. "Think I'll move to an island, turn into vapor/ Get a scooter and a house on the hill/ Fish all day just to fill up the grill," he sings, seemingly goofing on his "outlaw" reputation. "Spend my mornings making chocolate milk and Eggos/ My days at the beach, my nights stepping on Legos/ Wave to the world, screaming ‘hasta luego.'"

Zigging just when you expect him to zag, Simpson tries out shuffling New Wave for "Right Kind of Dream"; absolutely plush with coquettish strings, it's a delight you can imagine Molly Ringwald swooning to in a John Hughes movie. There's a Brothers and Sisters-era Allmans vibe to jangling "Mint Tea" and "One for the Road." A heartbreaker of a heartbreak song, it burns bright and hard, sharp with high-drama strings punctuation, before winding down into a loose, spaced-out jam. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz