Mojave 3... the third time’s the charm

You don’t need an excuse to listen to “Excuses for Travelers”

Before the turn of the millennium, Mojave 3 had already released two country-tinged and dreamy albums for the world’s listening pleasure. While both were similar in a broad sense, both albums were in different neighborhoods. Their debut “Ask Me Tomorrow” was slower and more ethereal, leaning heavily into dream pop, while their second album “Out of Tune” explored faster speeds and leaned closer to country and rock while expanding their band.

Their third album, May 2000’s “Excuses for Travellers,” combines elements of both albums and was a culmination of the work they’d done up to that point in their career. By using both the larger band and country leanings and the slower, melancholy tinge of their earlier music, Mojave 3 created one of the most raw albums I've ever listened to.

Mojave 3 is almost aggressive in its way of showing the delicate nature of the lyrics and music on this album. Somehow, they do this without feeling heavy-handed at all. One of the biggest examples of this happens around halfway through the album with “When You’re Drifting.”

The song tells the story of someone lost and wandering on the road, seemingly completely alone in life. The band illustrates this through lines like “Burned all your bridges 'cause you grew up too late, The people you love are just so far away.” The song matches this by having band parts that recall early Sun Kil Moon before the band even existed.

In some extended portions of the song, though, it almost shrinks. In parts when vocalist Neil Halstead repeats “When you’re drifting,” the song becomes not much more than guitar, which has Mojave 3 bring the song to its most emotional point and reminds the listener of how alone the main character is.

Speaking of main characters, Mojave 3 does an exceptional job of storytelling on this album more than I’ve seen in any part of their career. The band writes these folksy stories of sad drifters and people who are generally lost and somehow finds the perfect instrumental counterpart to weave in every time.

No other song in the album does this like “My Life in Art.” The song tells the story of a woman who left her previously abusive husband and works all night to survive. The singer is interested in her life, her hopes, her dreams and pretty much everything, but in the end, the woman doesn’t say a whole lot.

The song lyrically paints a picture of the singer’s thoughts and questions he’s having. Lines like “Just tell me 'bout the boulevards, Tell me 'bout your life in art, Yeah, tell me 'bout the boulevards, Because Europe always seemed so far,” act like a gateway into his specific interests in her. She gave him just enough information to cause him to continueto wonder, so wonder he will.

The song also has a delicate theme on display in its instrumental, recalling moments in “Ask Me Tomorrow” and filling most of its runtime filled with acoustic guitars and reverb-heavy vocals. The song is a lot more subdued than most Mojave 3 songs up until this point, feeling like the band is ushering a hush so the listener can really sink their teeth into the lyrics. At the same time, the instrumental somehow brings the listener to a bar on a slow night, seeing the last navy blues in the sky before it completely turns black.

Overall, the album has some of the best factors of both previous Mojave 3 records on display to create a beautiful, melancholic masterpiece. Mojave 3’s mood-setting and storytelling abilities are on full display here as the band brings the listener to vignettes of lost souls on the highway.