Portland's leading cosmic cowboy hits a rich seam on Doggone

For historical examples, see any 1969 live version of Velvet Underground’s “What Goes On”, the gently soaring output of Rose City Band, or the back catalogue of Sheffield-based guitarist Bobby Lee.

On his new album Doggone, Portland, Oregon-based Jeffrey Silverstein cultivates a distinctly choogle-some aesthetic, but the considerable forward-leap in terms of depth of songwriting the cosmic cowboy has executed since 2023’s Western Sky Music means that the proceedings are aligned more to choogling’s laidback and unhurried philosophy than its actual churningly repetitive practice.

So far, Silverstein’s recorded works have felt somewhat dry compared to the country-funk guitar-slinging groove mania he’s capable of conjuring live, with a suitably propulsive rhythm section in tow. Influenced by the realisation that American roots music runs deep within Silverstein’s family lore, Doggone savvily swerves such unfavourable comparisons by slowing the tempo and intensity and focusing instead on accentuating the warmth and wisdom of the songs, appealingly infused with flashes of self-acceptance and finding your own flow amidst the madness.

Even the instrumentals – reliably combustible on stage – opt for a more relaxed throb over full-blown lift-offs, such as the rippling “Portland Works”, which comes decorated with yearning lashings of pedal steel that feels like the exact aural equivalent of the enormous cowboy boots featured on the album cover.

Neither the laidback vibes nor Silverstein’s warmly murmured spoken word delivery (imagine Lou Reed with one foot in a beer-splattered honky tonk, conversing with Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner) should be mistaken for nap-inducing horizontality, however.

The grooves that he and his collaborators (including the rhythm section of the late, lamented Akron/Family) are cultivating may be gently unassertive, but these songs have hidden depths and sharp hooks: see how the minimalist mutters of opener "Coming Back Around" bloom into swirling, propulsive splendour, or how the Devendra Banhart-featuring "Out of Tune" appears to channel the soft-focus, vulnerable guitar ripples of Lou Reed’s "Coney Island Baby".

Even better are the more decisive departures from Silverstein’s house style. A skeletal duet with Merle Law, "Realize" is an affectingly naked ode to the possibility of happiness, while the dreamily pulsating positivity of "Helluva" catalogues Silverstein progressing from where "life was only something I went through" to having a good time, all of the time.

All told, Doggone is a gem of an album capable of conjuring potent hypnotic states and a portal to a realm where, to quote one of the tunes, "the door is always open and the beer is always cold."