Jenny Lewis, On the Line review: Indie rock star adds a California sheen to melancholy and nostalgia

Former child star has been through a lot since her debut album, but ‘On the Line’ is anything but maudlin

You only have to look at the list of On the Line’s guest collaborators for a picture of Jenny Lewis’s place in rock royalty. Ringo Starr drums, Beck produces and Benmont Tench – founder member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – plays Hammond organ. Her long-time collaborator Ryan Adams also features; Lewis decided to keep ownership of the music after allegations of his sexual misconduct emerged.

A former child star, Las Vegas-born Lewis found musical fame with her indie-pop band Rilo Kiley, which soundtracked TV shows such as The OC and Dawson’s Creek. Since their 2011 split, Lewis has released three solo albums of country-infused indie rock, the most recent of which, The Voyager (2014), channelled the breakup of her band, her severe insomnia, depression, and the death of her father. In the following five years, Lewis split from her boyfriend of 12 years, musician Johnathan Rice, and her mother died from cancer. But On the Line is anything but maudlin.

Here, Lewis does what she does best: adds the glossy sparkle of Hollywood and a sunny Californian sheen to melancholy and nostalgia, with her most luxuriantly orchestrated album yet. Even when she’s singing, “I’ve wasted my youth”, it’s in that sweet voice, with carefree “doo doo doo doo doo doos”, and at a pace that’s so upbeat that it masks the sentiment. It’s a bittersweet mourning of her past.

At the same time, On the Line faces Lewis’s past head-on. “Little White Dove” devastatingly portrays her mother’s struggles with heroin addiction, and the estrangement between them – until the end of her life. It was written after visiting her mother in hospital. “In the middle of love/ I’m the little white dove/ I’m the heroin”, she sings to a snaking bass groove from Don Was. With a little help from the Eighties chorus effect on the guitar, it turns a distressing subject matter into a song that’s slick and hip-shaking.

The album opens with the breakup. “Heads Gonna Roll” drips with melancholy country-rock, set to strings and steady, majestic piano, redolent of John Lennon. But there is a defiance to it too, and an acceptance that everything comes to an end. “I’m gonna keep on dancing till I hear that ringing bell/ Heads gonna roll, baby,“ sings Lewis, as distorted Hammond organ builds the drama. ”Everybody’s gotta pay that toll and maybe after all is said and done, we’ll all be skulls.”

She further lays bare the crumbling of a relationship in “Dogwood” (“The neighbours heard us scream and shout/ Somewhere a screw got loose along the way”) and in the most stripped-back, tender song of the album, “Taffy” (“I could not leave it alone/ I wanted to please you, my dress was see-through/ As I looked through your phone/ I am such a coward/ But how could you send her flowers?”). It’s sung, again, to Lennon-style piano, and strings straight out of The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby”: whether or not it’s a coincidence that a Beatle also appears on the album, there are plenty of echoes of the Fab Four here.

“Red Bull and Hennessy”, the first track to have been unveiled, is a stunning punch of country-rock piano with the hazy nostalgia of distorted instrumentation and vocals that recall Kate Bush. That nostalgia continues to the album’s closing track, the harmony and Eighties synths-loaded “Rabbit Hole”. It’s got that jaunty edge.

“I’m not going to go down the rabbit hole with you again” is the parting message; Jenny Lewis wants us to know that no matter what’s happened, she will always move forwards with optimistic defiance. It’s a message that, on this album, you’ll want to hear again and again.