Singer/songwriter Kevin Patrick Sullivan's music under the
Field Medic moniker continued a long tradition of instantaneous capture of intense and spontaneous feelings with lo-fi means. For the majority the expansive
Field Medic discography, Sullivan recorded his personal and personality-heavy indie folk tunes with whatever was close at hand, resulting in beautiful albums made on cassette four-tracks, borrowed home-recording gear, voice memo apps, and boom boxes. The nine songs on
Grow Your Hair Long If You're Wanting to See Something You Can Change take a new approach, with Sullivan utilizing a proper recording studio and even bringing in a host of guest musicians to fill out the arrangements of his songs. Oftentimes, when an artist known for lo-fi recordings attempts a transition to more-defined production, the shift can either be too jarring or expose shortcomings that were hidden in the noisy layers.
Field Medic manages to bypass this scenario by keeping his witty and mildly ridiculous lyrics in the forefront, and keeping his arrangements mostly as spare as they were on his earlier, more shabbily rendered albums. He uses the first few songs to get the excitement of studio possibilities out of his system, however, with "Always Emptiness" sparkling with clean, loud drums and bright pedal steel guitar. That song and "Weekends," an upbeat but somewhat desperate ode to wiling away aimless downtime, both sound bigger than anything Sullivan has attempted before, and the heightened clarity takes a little getting used to. By "I Had a Dream That You Died," though, the drum machine rhythm and double-tracked vocal hooks gel with lyrics that are partially emotionally raw and partially quirky, finding a happy medium between his older sound and the new one he's trying out. Much of the rest of the album lands like a higher-quality version of the spare dreaminess Sullivan is so good at, with tunes like "House Arrest" and "Miracle/Marigold" consisting of little more than clusters of glistening acoustic guitar, soft vocals, or understated folksy instruments. "I Think About You All the Time" finds the perfect balance between
Field Medic's ambitious new sound and his comfort zone, with
R.E.M.-informed vocal melodies connecting sweetly silly lyrics and a dynamic arrangement that never gets too involved to diminish the essential push of the song.
Grow Your Hair Long If You're Wanting to See Something You Can Change doesn't change gears enough to risk alienating existing fans, and it's nice to hear the pain, regret, excitement, and self-inspection of Sullivan's songs laid bare. As the album goes on, it becomes clear that
Field Medic's home-recording style added some blemished charm to the sound, but also undercut the emotional impact of Sullivan's lovely yet sometimes gut-wrenching songwriting. ~ Fred Thomas