Jay Farrar has amassed a sizable and distinctive body of work since coming on the radar with Uncle Tupelo in 1989. The Search, the fifth album by the St. Louis-based artist under the Son Volt nameplate, takes Farrar’s signature juxtapositions of the arcane and the modern to provocative extremes, contrasting the blue highways of a disappearing cultural landscape with a perilous world in which the center no longer holds – a world of information overload, of clueless leaders carrying out sinister agendas, of “Hurricanes in December – earthquakes in the heartland/Bad air index on a flashing warning sign,” as the artist sings ruefully on “The Picture.”

The Search’s 14 songs locate and vividly portray the prevailing modes of the human condition in the first decade of the 21st century: cynicism (“Beacon Soul”), reflection (“The Search”), restlessness (“L Train,” “Highways and Cigarettes”), yearning (“Adrenaline and Heresy”), paranoia (“Automatic Society”), despair (“Methamphetamine”) and conditional hopefulness (“Underground Dream,” “Phosphate Skin”). By turns melancholy and exhilarating, the album further cements Farrar’s status as one of rock’s most eloquent chroniclers of contemporary existence.

Before the sessions that led to The Search (recorded to analog tape with favored live approach), Farrar expanded the current Son Volt lineup of drummer Dave Bryson, bass player Andrew DuPlantis and guitarist Brad Rice – introduced on the 2005 album Okemah and the Melody of Riot – to include keyboardist Derry deBorja, a former bandmate of Bryson’s in Canyon, which backed Farrar on the 2004 live solo LP, Stone, Steel & Bright Lights. deBorja’s presence brings added dimension to the band’s sonic palate in parallel with the expanded thematic scope of the material. The resulting textures and tonalities are the richest and most intricate in Farrar’s oeuvre, with string effects, backwards loops, a horn section, electric bouzouki and other unexpected accents bringing striking new shadings to Son Volt’s bedrock sound, an amalgam of the Byrds, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, the blues, murder ballads, old-time country and other indigenous elements.

“I started writing right after we finished Okemah and the Melody of Riot and accumulated more songs than usual,” says Farrar. “There are actually 22 songs recorded, which we pared down to these 14. [Plans are in the works for a special limited-edition of The Search containing all 22 tracks.] Because I got an early start on the material, it took a little bit of the pressure off and allowed me to experiment with different structures and think about using different instrumentation. Songs like ‘Methamphetamine’ and ‘Highways and Cigarettes’ revisit the aesthetic, but I didn’t want to make that the way the whole record sounded, because I feel that good things can happen from pushing things in different directions.”

After opting to put Son Volt aside for five years in order to undertake a series of solo projects, Farrar is now two albums into the band’s second incarnation, describing the decision as a matter of “unfinished business.” Son Volt, he explains, represents “a kind of aesthetic that I want to continue doing. The solo stuff had a liberating effect out of just doing something different for several years. But ultimately, I felt getting back to Son Volt was something that had to happen.”

FARRAR COMMENTS ON THE SONGS

“Slow Hearse”: The album opens with the repeating of a single line – “Feel like driving around in a slow hearse” – sung by Farrar at the doleful top of his range. “The original intent with that song was that it would be an intro to a different song that’s not in this batch of 14, but after it was mixed, it just seemed to work as an intro to the whole recording. It reminds some people of the Beatles, with that staccato piano. They’re on to something there: the Beatles were probably the first band I was into, and this record perhaps acknowledges that influence. In the past I consciously avoided anything Beatlesque because there were so many other Beatles fanatics out there.”

“The Picture”: This edgy piece of social commentary is set off by a jauntily soulful horn chart. “We put the horns on after we recorded it, and at first I wasn’t sure whether that juxtaposition was gonna seem incongruous to have such a buoyant element in a downbeat song. But after hearing it, I felt like it worked and that that’s the way it wanted to be. ”

“Action”: A droning, raga-like rocker with the sort of enigmatic, Dylanesque wordplay that has long been Farrar’s stock in trade. “Lyrically it’s sort of a celebration of the road, a theme that gets revisited [in his writing]. The inspiration for the sound of it came from blues as well as Eastern music.”

“Underground Dream”: An elliptical protest song containing the aforementioned string effects. “The lyric acknowledges living in a world of conservative cowboy ideologies. That track was all live; it was just the fifth time we’d played the song, which may account for the sense of urgency in the performance.”

"Circadian Rhythm”: An evocation of Zuma-era psychedelic roots rock, complete with Rice’s backwards guitar. “The electric guitar is playing familiar octaves, and the backwards stuff takes it in a different direction. I was all set to ditch the vocal sections without lyrics but the band said they liked it on the demo so those parts stayed. The title references the on-the-road lifestyle, where the sleep pattern is often interrupted…but that can sometimes be a good thing.”

“Beacon Soul”: A zeitgeist-capturing piece that contains the memorable line, “Who the hell is Dow Jones anyway?” “The song references the debate that has gone on, especially around here in Missouri, over stem-cell research, although it isn’t specifically about that.”

“The Search”: Key lyric: “Always dreaming it’s the search not the find.” “That one is about the overload of the Information Age. It’s mind-boggling sometimes – every show, every interview, is videotaped televised and podcast, and the information’s coming back at you through TV and satellite. More so than the road, the title signifies trying to find meaning in anything, and for me it’s all about the search – that’s what keeps me going more than actually having any specific goals to achieve; I think there’s a danger in that because, if you achieve that goal, then where do you go?”

“Adrenaline and Heresy”: A two-lane lament suggesting distance, bitter endings and new beginnings. “The song represents struggle, and I thought it was important to put that end piece on there [“High on adrenaline/It’s a new day”] as a release from the down element in the rest of the song.”

“Satellite”: The metaphor of the orbiting object has been employed in pop songs countless times, but this use is different. “It’s actually more literal – the satellite phone would be ideal but the cell phone is the main mode of communication while you’re on the road, so your world kind of revolves around whether or not you’re getting a signal. One guy’s phone will always be working well, and everyone else’s is dead.”

“Automatic Society: In what stands as a radical change of pace for Farrar, a litany of quick-cut modern-day buzzwords is set off by old-school hard-rock guitar riffs. “Lyrically, I don’t know whether it’s influenced by Beck or someone like that, but I usually don’t write songs like this one. Our guitar tech likes the swamp-rock middle section – gotta go there.”

“Methamphetamine”: One of the album’s linchpin songs, this cinematically vivid hardscrabble narrative traces lives in which hope is ever-receding. “I’ve always been reluctant to write narrative-type songs, so this is probably my first foray into narrative, although it’s a composite of people I’ve known.”

“L Train”: Here, a visitor from the heartland experiences the primary form of transportation between Manhattan and Brooklyn. “I mixed the last couple solo records in Williamsburg, and I spent time in Manhattan, riding that train to Williamsburg. There are certain subways that have this recording that sounds like the guy from the B-52’s – ‘Stand clear of the closing doors, please.’ I was thinking about how people from all over the country go to Brooklyn to find themselves or to be hip, but then there are also many people who just stay where they’re at, and I guess I’m always rooting for them.”

“Highways and Cigarettes”: Another highway saga, this one pieced together from concrete details – coffee stains, the smell of cigarettes, a radio signal from Mexicali. “It’s definitely another celebrational road song, acknowledging that it’s good to be back out. I like traveling in a van, where you have the freedom to see some of those forgotten or less conspicuous places. My father lived a similar lifestyle as a merchant marine, so some of that may have been passed along.”

“Phosphate Skin”: Keyed by lines like “The daily drag makes you stronger” and “The best is within not with who or where you’ve been,” this bittersweet song could be seen as a sort of personal credo. “The title is maybe a metaphor for a polluted existence, but there’s a kind of optimism in the song that hopefully comes across.”

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