Jason Lytle - Yours Truly, the Commuter (2009)

1) Yours Truly, the Commuter; 2) Brand New Sun; 3) The Ghost of My Old Dog; 4) I Am Lost (And the Moment Cannot Last); 5) Birds Encouraged Him; 6) It’s the Weekend; 7)  Fürget It; 8) This Song is the Mute Button; 9) Rollin’ Home Alone; 10) You’re Too Gone; 11) Flying Thru Canyons; 12) Here for Good

Grandaddy frontman's cosy homecoming. Familiar old Lytle territory, but comfortably so.

Key tracks: "Yours Truly, the Commuter", "Brand New Sun", "Flying Thru Canyons"

There’s only three years between Grandaddy’s then-last album Just Like the Fambly Cat and Jason Lytle’s solo debut Yours Truly, the Commuter, but Lytle gives the impression he’s returned from decades of wandering in the wilderness. The title track which opens the album is a proud declaration of return with a typically Lytle-esque self-deprecating angle (“I may be limping, but I’m coming home”), and that same feel of humble personal triumph runs throughout, in lyrics and mood. It’s like Lytle had not touched a single instrument during his break and now sounds delighted that he’s back at it again - and revelling in his own comeback romance. Or as the song puts it, “All work and no play might have done me in / But I’m stoked I’m back after where I’ve been”.

Given Grandaddy was always a Lytle solo job not-so-behind the scenes, Yours Truly, the Commuter slots in pretty comfortably as part of that lineage musically. All of Lytle’s traits from his songwriting style to his production style of choice are here exactly as they’ve always been, making Yours Truly, the Commuter instantly familiar to every Grandaddy fan - slightly more straightforward and more acoustic than fuzzy electric guitars, but largely as expected. What sets it apart as a Lytle solo record specifically is that it’s a lot less preoccupied of the world as a whole and it has shed off that weight off its back. If you could define Grandaddy by the lyrics addressing the balance between human nature and technology and the melancholic unease that seeped into the music through it, then Lytle “on his own” is just that: a singer/songwriter with little of the worries of the greater world behind him, focusing on whimsical character studies and mild introspection. It’s grounded and low stakes, and decidedly so.

If you need convincing that just Lytle’s charisma and his sharp earworm melodies alone without high concepts go a long way towards a good album, leading the album with its most boisterous songs drives that point across. The title track. the Grandaddy-esque “Brand New Sun” and jovially rolling “Ghost of My Old Dog” are all familiar Lytle territory but they charm you quickly, Lytle sounds reinvigorated and they make a good reminder for why more of Lytle’s songwriting is always nice to have around. Similarly, the album ends with a stretch of wistful ballads and mood pieces that could get really repetitive really quickly, but Lytle does bittersweet wonderfully and when combined with the general friendly warmth of the album, the last leg of the album is like a somber moment of reaching the final goal but reflecting on the journey behind. “Flying Thru Canyons” in particular is a disarmingly pretty credits roll and a little Lytle highlight. The only place where things get rolled a little too thin is  "It’s the Weekend", a peppy little number about the titular matter which is so lightweight it sounds intentionally throwaway. Between the understated grace of “Birds Encouraged Him” with its lovely, gently flowing synth melodies and the almost-instrumental “Fürget It”, it’s more of an eyebrow-raising interlude than a weekend party anthem.

The biggest real criticism you could throw at Yours Truly, the Commuter is that there’s no progress or major change included, that Lytle is simply continuing to use the same tricks he’s most familiar with: only the soundtrack-like “Fürget It” explores uncharted territories. But, and it gets very clear very quickly into the album, he’s not out to outdo his prior works with the album either. The red string that ties all the songs together is that sense of home-like coziness, and you can hear that achieving just that has been the primary goal for Lytle. Yours Truly the Commuter sets itself up as a homecoming album of sorts, a return to music from someone who needed to take a break from it for a while, and the album is loaded with that sense of rested positivity that comes from that. Even now, removed from its original comeback context through time, it has the aura of meeting up with an old friend you’ve not seen for a while and finding out he’s doing pretty decently for himself. It’s not a groundbreaking record by any means, but it’s one that simply feels good to listen to and to come back to from time to time.

Rating: 7/10