That's the Price of Loving Me

Dean Wareham is a relaxed psych-pop loverman on his sun-dappled fourth solo album, 2025s Thats the Price of Loving Me. The follow-up to 2021s I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L.A., the LP is also notably Warehams first with producer/instrumentalist Kramer who helmed his first band Galaxie 500s classic recordings and last worked with Wareham on their final 1990 album This Is Our Music. Joining them is Warehams longtime partner bassist/vocalist Britta Phillips, along with drummers Roger Brogan and Anthony LaMarca, and cellist/bass harmonica player Gabe Noel. Whether its the presence of Kramer or the hushed nature of Warehams music, or both, Thats the Price of Loving Me has the immediately familiar feeling of a classic Galaxie 500 or Luna album. This is especially true on cuts like "Mystery Guest," "New World Julie," and "Bourgeois Manque," hypnotic guitar anthems that recall the spirit of the Velvet Undergrounds late-60s smoky, dark sunglasses and leather jackets. Theres also an organic warmth to the production, marked by analog instrumental textures and a big, reverb-laden atmosphere. Its a spectral, cinematic album, evoking arid spaghetti western landscapes, as on the opening "You Were the Ones," where Wareham croons of a doomed cowboy partnership as slide guitar sprinkles moondust on his wagon trail. He sings, "Together, we rode/Into the haze/And everything there/Was coming in waves/You were the ones/I had to betray." Elsewhere, as on the title track, he plays the romantic sage, where the price of his all-consuming passion is to dream away time and space. He sings, "Were out of canticles to learn/Out of melodies to burn/Out of silk and out of suede/Out of cities to invade." The album, with its loungey, brushed shuffle grooves and sparkling guitar riffs, has its own intoxicating pull borne of the magical, decades-old chemistry between Wareham and Kramer. Thats the Price of Loving Me might pull you into a golden vortex of their shared reverie, but its a small price to pay. ~ Matt Collar