Dylan LeBlanc - Cautionary Tale

Pitchfork 57

We are not, nor have we ever been, short on young, white, male singer-songwriters: Moody, earnest, troubled and usually in their mid-twenties, wielding an acoustic guitar and writing songs ranging from thoughtfully introspective to blissfully unaware. Enter Dylan LeBlanc, a 25-year-old Louisiana native. According to his bio, LeBlanc found himself, at 23, "exhausted and damaged," thanks to alcohol and hard living. True to this particular troubadour form, he more or less got his life together and wrote some songs about it. He’s even got a tie to the Muscle Shoals golden goose, having lived in the Alabama town as a child before returning to write his third LP, Cautionary Tale.

The result lands comfortably in the contemporary singer-songwriter canon, but it’s hard to say exactly where. Lilting pedal steel, brushy acoustic guitar strums and tender piano licks suggest Americana, but string sections pull LeBlanc in a different direction. Cautionary Tale often feels like what most folks probably expected from Night Beds as a follow-up to 2013’s Country Sleep. LeBlanc’s somewhat high mumbled singing directly recalls Night Beds’ Winston Yellen, most notably on "Man Like Me."

It’s these richer textures and unexpected twists that do Cautionary Tale the most favors. The result is a record that, on the surface, sounds beautiful from start to finish. At times, though, these arrangements create a smoke-and-mirrors effect that obscures the weak spots in LeBlanc’s songwriting. "Beyond the Veil" is a slow, bluesy track with blunt lyrics about lying politicians and media manipulation that don’t read much different from a teenager’s Tumblr post encouraging readers to "stay woke." Later, "Balance or Fall" feels like a tired take on a lonesome cowboy metaphor: guns, the desert, harlots, and the hangman’s noose all come up at some point. An Americana-leaning song romanticizing the Wild West: imagine that!

These arrangements don’t prevent Cautionary Tale from dragging in its back half, either. Centerpiece "Beyond the Veil" sounds pretty, especially with its extended instrumental coda, but by the song’s end, you’ve pretty much gotten the gist of the extent of LeBlanc’s capabilities. The remaining four songs end up feeling like dead weight, adding little else of note. "I’m Moving On," a pleasant shuffle that sounds teleported from the early '60s, might be an exception—even if most of its lyrics are just the title repeated about a dozen times.

Despite these shortcomings, LeBlanc still fares better than many of his like-minded contemporaries. Cautionary Tale never feels cloying or over-the-top—LeBlanc’s voice and arrangements always fit together naturally. His songwriting seems promising enough to expand, offering him an opportunity to examine himself and the world around him with a more critically thoughtful eye. LeBlanc might be part of a club that never seems to stop expanding, but he at least offers some extra intrigue with his membership.