Terms of Surrender

One hopes that M.C. Taylor's dark clouds have parted, but on Terms of Surrender he's taken his troubles and made something beautiful and inspiring out of them. If you want to use music as therapy, this is the way to do it.

The National’s busy polymath Aaron Dessner is producer, bringing this excellent album, full of fear and succour, into focus.

It’s a fantastic sounding record, which doesn’t appear to be solely the result of the playing or the production (by Taylor and Brad Cook).

Taylor wrote and recorded the 10 tracks that makeup Terms of Surrender, and ended up with something that feels nothing like anything he’s made before it.

The record sounds warm, full and flirty; the snares hit you, the bass bounces and harmonicas and organs are as bright as California stars.

All up, an(nother) apparently effortless hitting if the sweet spot. [Oct 2019, p.27]

There's something transcendent about the former hardcore kid and the musicians he assembles for Hiss Golden Messenger, this time featuring Aaron Dessner of The National and Jenny Lewis. [Oct 2019, p.106]

Jenny Lewis and The National’s Aaron Dessner guest this time out but to be honest, the spotlight is increasingly and deservedly Taylor’s alone to enjoy. Surrender now.

[“I Need A Teacher”'s video is] an inspiringly optimistic vision of good people demanding a fairer world, broken American moment be damned. All of Terms of Surrender follows that sweetly humane vibe, balancing Taylor’s feelings of depression and doubt with gorgeously homespun music and a sense of family as guiding light in difficult moments.

On an album where Taylor nakedly reveals his most pressing moments of despair, it’s only in the album's handful of brighter moments that you wish for maybe just another small taste of the darkness. Taylor manages to flip his career-long look for the silver lining by acknowledging the pull of the worldly can only be put in a tidy little box for so long.

His best songs put his ruminations on spirituality, family, loneliness, and humanity at the center, but here he sounds like the only thing he’s surrendered is his spotlight.