Pitchfork

On his 12th studio album, Steve Earle bids a final farewell to Guitar Town-- his nickname for Nashville and the title of his infamous 1986 debut. Very literally bids farewell: On the opening track, "Tennessee Blues", Earle sings, "Won't be back no more, boss, you won't see me around. Goodbye, Guitar Town." The song chronicles his move from Nashville, where he launched, wrecked, and rebuilt his career, to the decidedly un-country town of New York City, a change that surely would wreck most careers in a business that equates the rural with roots and the urban with uppitiness. But Earle long ago shed any concern for Guitar Town's unwritten rules and continues to define himself as everything the establishment is not: He's a singer and a songwriter, an avowed liberal who plays prison shows and campaigned heartily against Bush, and-- perhaps most impressively-- a rehabbed artist who wrote himself a second career chapter that was even stronger than the first.

So his move to Clinton Country doesn't seem too far-fetched. Hell, it almost seems inevitable. Besides, he really, really likes New York. Washington Square Serenade, in addition to taking its title from a Greenwich Village park, contains not one but two paeans to the Big Apple and its people: "Down Here Below", about the divide between the haves in their skyscrapers and the have-nots on the subway, and "City of Immigrants", which features local Brazilian group Forro in the Dark. On every song the city's influence can be heard, whether in a stanza about Joe Mitchell or in the clangorous percussion that mimics the sound of a busy street.

But does New York City love Steve Earle back? His municipal muse seems to have led him into downtown traffic: Despite his transparent inspiration, Washington Square Serenade turns out to be his weakest collection of the 00s, which is saying a lot considering his last two lackluster albums. Those two odes to the local underclass are two of the worst offenders. On "Down Here Below" Earle speaks the verses like he's at an East Village open-mic night, and the effect is so grating it makes the sung chorus seem like an oasis, even if it does sound like it's been sutured in from another song. Earle takes a different tack on "City of Immigrants", inviting Forro in the Dark to provide backing vocals over vaguely ethnic city rhythms. With ludicrous lyrics like "City of bone/ City of skin/ City of pain/ City of immigrants", the song presents a redundantly romanticized view of the city and its multicultural communities. When Forro in the Dark start singing "We are all immigrants" over Earle's vocal countermelody, the song transcends the self-righteous and achieves the ridiculous.

The rest of Washington Square Serenade ranges from good ("Days Aren't Long Enough", a duet with wife Allison Moorer) to merely serviceable ("Red Is the Color"). Disappointingly, the closing cover of Tom Waits's "Way Down in the Hole" (better known as the theme to The Wire, which features Earle in a small recurring role) sounds slick rather than haunted, especially compared to versions by the Blind Boys of Alabama (Season 1), Waits himself (Season 2), and the Neville Brothers (Season 3). Listen for Earle's version on Season 5.

Earle gives a decent performance on "Way Down in the Hole", but what makes his version nearly unlistenable-- and what ultimately sinks this album-- is the production by John King. The former Dust Brother fits most of these songs with a matte surface and programmed beats that sound instantly dated (in fact, they keep reminding me of Billy Bob Thornton's atrocious cover of "Ring of Fire", a comparison no artist should ever court). On softer songs like "Come Home to Me", these beats distract from Earle's simple sentiments, and on faster songs like "Down Here Below", the banjo-and-beats breakdowns can be laughable. Worse, they clash against Earle's rough-edged voice and the mostly acoustic instruments and live drums on "Jericho Road" and "Steve's Hammer (For Pete)", two of the album's best tracks. Ultimately, these beats are a very obvious means of evoking an urban hubbub, as stale as calling New York "the city that never sleeps"-- which he actually does. It's just another wrong turn that gets Earle even more lost in the big city.