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Description
**Quietly Blowing It** stands as M.C. Taylor's tenth proper release, a retrospective of the preceding five years that, upon careful listening, reveals an artist beginning to tread familiar ground. The album leans into folk/country territory with studied calmness, treating declarative statements as if they carry the weight they once held on previous efforts like *Lateness of Dancers* or *Hallelujah Anyhow*. While the crickets bridging songs and the earnest political commentary are undeniably Taylor, the album's grand scope occasionally feels like a statement that's been rehearsed too often.
Recorded in Taylor's small North Carolina office studio, the album features production credit to Taylor himself, with additional co-writes on select tracks from collaborators like Anaïs Mitchell and Gregory Alan Isakov. An impressive roster of guests-Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes and legendary producer Buddy Miller among them-attempt to breathe new life into the proceedings. Yet, even these collaborations struggle to overcome the sense that the album's most striking moments have been heard before.
The title track recalls *Devotion* from 2013's *Haw*, and the sun-bleached pedal steel of *Angels in the Headlights* feels like an extended cameo on an album already well-worn. Taylor's lyrics tackle income inequality and political corruption with earnestness, but the rote uplift often undermines the complexity of the issues. In a time of severe international strife, the album's optimism is assumed but never really earned, reducing thorny questions to bumper-sticker declarations.
Ultimately, *Quietly Blowing It* is an album that strives and strains so hard for meaning and weight that it threatens to become meaningless and weightless: lite music for dark times. It's a noble attempt, but one that might benefit from the quiet questions rather than the answers Taylor seems intent on dispensing.
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[^1]: [Pitchfork review](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/hiss-golden-messenger-quietly-blowing-it/) notes the album's repetitive sequencing and "lite music for dark times" characterization.
[^2]: [Indy Week](https://indyweek.com/music/hiss-golden-messenger-quietly-blowing-it/) highlights collaborators including Anaïs Mitchell, Gregory Alan Isakov, Taylor Goldsmith, and Buddy Miller.
[^3]: [Old Rookie](https://oldrookie.com/2021/06/23/another-chapter-another-lesson-hiss-golden-messengers-quietly-blowing-it/) discusses Taylor's production role on the album recorded in his NC home studio.
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