An unintentional reminder of baseball’s eerie absence from American life right now, the title of the Howling Hex’s Knuckleball Express references our national pastime’s weirdest, wackiest pitch, darting and dipping and befuddling hitters due to seemingly random movements resulting from its attenuated spinning motion. It’s also a fitting moniker for yet another surprising change of direction by Howling Hex mastermind Neil Hagerty, who’s sensibility has shifted from Pussy Galore’s brutal noise assault to Royal Trux’s trippy re-visitation of classic-rock decadence to the skeletal yet snaky arrangements of his solo work.
Compared to recent Howling Hex outings like the relentlessly demented carnival bop of 2013’s The Best of the Howling Hex and 2016’s Denver, Knuckleball Express is a comparatively straightforward take on blues rock. Opening track “Lies” sets the tone with an immediately catchy three-chord fuzz riff, retaining a looseness that makes its aphoristic refrain—“If you want to die, believe in lies”—less admonishing than matter of fact, as if Hagerty decided the best way to deliver his moral is to marry it to a propulsive ZZ Top-style groove.
The most dramatic change to the band’s sound comes from newly enlisted guitarist Nicole Lawrence and keyboardist Kristine Shafer, who both contribute vocals throughout. It’s difficult to imagine Hagerty sharing vocal duties with a chanteuse other than Jennifer Herrema, his longtime battery-mate in Royal Trux (and one-time girlfriend), but Lawrence’s and Shafer’s dulcet voices are so diametrically opposed to Herrema’s woozy drawl that it brings out a rarely glimpsed dimension of his songwriting: prettiness. “Mr. Chicken,” for instance, initially proceeds according to the Howling Hex playbook, with Shafer’s scratchy voice buried under dueling bursts of distorted guitar, until the chorus drops everything but drums, keyboards, and Shafer’s light and beautifully lilted phrasing. The effect is disarmingly joyous.
Lawrence also helps spotlight just how intimate Hagerty’s work can be. When she and Hagerty open “City in the Country” by repeating, “It’s just another addiction now, uh huh/And that’s why I won’t be seeing you around me,” their harmonizing expresses the melancholic acceptance of a romance undone by self-destruction while alluding more specifically to Hagerty and Herrema’s tumultuous personal history. The introduction to the following track, “Heavy Curtains,” also appears to make reference to that history, but here Shafer alone delivers the commentary in a gentle coo over rudimentary keyboard plunks: “Last golden braid/Heavy curtains fall/No masquerade/No curtain call.” Whether or not the song refers to the recent disintegration of a briefly reunited Royal Trux, this newly revealed sweet side to the Howling Hex proves remarkably successful.
The second half of Knuckleball Express slightly disappoints with three short tracks that feel more like sketches than fully developed ideas. But the album ends with “North Aquarian,” which at nearly six minutes long provides Hagerty a shredding showcase while also giving drummer Kenneth Boykins a chance at a solo. Yet even “North Aquarian” could’ve been more than what it is, a would-be Hagerty epic in the vein of “Blue Is the Frequency” or “Trashcan Bahamas” that’s instead cut off at the legs by an abrupt and awkward fadeout. This approach is also detrimentally applied to “Words” and “City in the Country,” mitigating the album’s warts-and-all tack by reducing its presentation of deep improvisation and experimentation.
Still, along with Royal Trux’s Thank You and Hagery’s 2002 solo outing, Plays That Good Old Rock and Roll, Knuckleball Express may well be the most accessible entry in the musician’s vast catalogue. It’s not a compromise or sell-out, but rather a welcome implementation of his talents to the foundational rock that’s always undergirded his sound and sensibility.
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