Josh Worman, 'Music Therapy'

(Self-released, CD, digital)

Franklin native Josh Worman returned to his home state of Vermont in 2014 after years of living in New York City and Nashville, Tenn. The singer-songwriter and guitarist wasted no time in reestablishing his musical connections, recording several albums’ worth of his genre-skewing brand of roots rock, including the 2018 legalization anthem “Legal Weed.”

For his latest, Music Therapy, Worman tapped Ben Maddox (the Mountain Says No, Astral Underground) as producer and promptly set up shop in Maddox’s recording studio in Enosburg Falls. At Maddox’s urging, Worman drafted Franklin’s Uncle John’s Band to back him on the record; he describes them in the liner notes as “the best band I’ve ever been in.”

Hiring the cover band was an inspired idea from Maddox. Worman’s music runs the gamut from jam band crunch to country to outright rock, a range that suits Uncle John’s Band. When Worman wants to go classic, Randy Newman-esque crooner on “Sittin’ on a Goldmine,” they swing right along with him as if they were all swilling drinks at a hazy nightclub. When things get harder on “Little Birdy,” a cock-rocker with some fierce slide guitar, the players have no problem putting the foot on the gas.

The real star of Music Therapy is Worman’s eclecticism; some might find it confounding, but it rewards patient listeners. Opening track “Beautiful” starts with a gorgeous vocal harmony but quickly turns into rather disappointing, middle-of-the-road dad rock. A paint-by-numbers chorus does little to alleviate the tune’s generic nature. When it transitions to the second track, “Time Was Made to Be Wasted,” Worman’s acoustic-Grateful Dead vibe is almost perplexing.

Things come into focus with “Burning the Candle at Both Ends.” A chugging slacker-rock jam that shades toward a Meat Puppets tune, it creates a sense of whiplash that is only exacerbated by the following cut, “Public Domain.” The trip from alt-rock to something resembling a PBS kids’ show ditty makes the dad rock at the album’s start worth it. Worman is painting a wide canvas, and sometimes you just have to let an artist go off course in pursuit of their vision.

The psychedelic and ambient passages are some of Music Therapy‘s most interesting moments. Using snippets of electric guitar, field recordings and snatches of seemingly unrelated dialogue (think The Dark Side of the Moon), Worman builds little blips of experimental music. Those daring moments are expertly accompanied by the record’s other secret weapon: Worman’s sense of humor. It shines on songs such as “Trigger Warning,” which features Worman popping off lyrics such as “I don’t mean to beat a dead horse / but when people talk they have intercourse.”

The record ends with “The Caretakers,” a melancholic ballad Worman wrote about taking care of his aging mother. The song completes an impressive tour of styles and moods that, occasional stumbles aside, coalesces into a fascinating collection of music.

Music Therapy is available at joshworman.bandcamp.com.

This article appears in Jul 19-25, 2023.