Johnny Blue Skies – Passage Du Desir

Passage du Desir is a studio album by American singer-songwriter Sturgill Simpson, released under a new alter ego Johnny Blue Skies. Passage Du Desir (which translates to "Passage of Desire") marks Simpson's first album in three years. After a trio of bluegrass records and his underrated scuzz-rock opus Sound and Fury, Simpson has returned to, and expanded upon, the metamodern country sounds that made him an outsider Nashville star in the early 2010s.

Lyrically, Passage Du Desir is heavy with heartache, burdened by past mistakes, adrift in impossible dreams, and desperate for relief — or at least some kind of escape, writes Rolling Stone, in a review. Simpson's candor hits unvarnished extremes here, even begging at one point, on "Right Kind of Dream," to be let in off the street with the promise, "I'll leave my heart so blue out on your doorstep/So when you come home you can wipe your feet."

The despair runs deep, and Simpson delivers it with some of the most intriguing vocal performances of his career. Simpson's always had a bit of crooner in him, the rich, round drawl of his voice long evoking comparisons to Waylon Jennings. On Passage Du Desir, it's softer, more vulnerable and malleable, but not hidden. Vocal tracks are often layered and/or lathered with effects, creating a dissociative quality that's almost cosmic — as if the only way to see, or even begin to comprehend, a pain this great is to get as far away from it as possible. The few moments when Simpson leaps through the melancholy and flashes the rough, rowdy edges of his voice are revelatory, like the chorus of "Jupiter's Faerie," a masterful paean to a lost friend.

Technically isn't a Sturgill Simpson album. The record is credited to Johnny Blue Skies, a moniker Simpson adopted for this new phase of his career after declaring he'd only ever make five albums under his own name.

First album in three years by the American singer-songwriter

Review

"Even when he's singing about a "Swamp of Sadness" and wondering "If the Sun Never Rises Again," it's clear that Simpson has made his way through the darkness, settling into a place where he's utterly comfortable in his skin and scars."

- Allmusic