Localized Gregory Alan Isakov

The dark, mysterious landscape of the American West drapes itself across every surface of This Empty Northern Hemisphere, the most recent full-length from Boulder’s Gregory Alan Isakov. From the title of the album, to the artwork, to Isakov’s earnest lyrics, it feels as if there’s a larger theme at work here that’s never explicitly spelled out, and Northern Hemisphere couldn’t have come from anywhere but Colorado. With scattered references to the more obvious Rocky Mountains and detailed lines about “kids smoking on south 1st”, Isakov firmly pins down his narrators as members of the Denver community—and it’s a welcome effect. Where other folk singers often rely on abstractions and semi-vague lyrics to promote accessibility to listeners, the Isakov's details drop the songs firmly into specific places and times, each one like a Polaroid photo.

Vocally, Isakov’s work is undeniably beautiful; his low whispers evoke the more sentimental (and sincere) side of Ryan Adams, while his falsetto is so buoyant it can feel as though it’s going to float away. The instrumentation on Northern Hemisphere deserves just as much praise, with carefully placed strings that lift songs out of the gloom of the American night, like a glance at the moon from eyes that have been watching the road.

There are some little bits, however, that almost shouldn’t fit in—unusual placings of a pedal steel on “Idaho” that almost feeds back, and what sounds like a backward piano sample at the beginning of “Evelyn.” The album also drags at times, as songs blend into each other and the way is temporarily lost. But by the last song, Isakov finds himself again, covering Leonard Cohen with nothing but a guitar, a cello, and the help of some female harmonizing. 

As the album comes to an end, it becomes visible in how it hangs together: as good, sturdy, hefty folk music, Isakov's work buckles together like an old hardcover book. The songs feel full, tended to, and loved, and in places, the music really opens up and gets huge—a track like “Evelyn” with its wheel organ and crashing drums feels like anything is possible within the music. Intentional or not, there’s really only one fitting comparison for Isakov’s music: a wide, cloudless Colorado sky at night, straight out of the old, wild west.

A.V. Club grade: A