‘The Leaving Kind’ is a road record, but it isn’t really about traveling. It’s about a man trying to work out what constant movement has cost him. Over ten songs and a little more than half an hour, Leon Majcen moves easily between country, blues, roots rock and barroom Americana, and the question underneath stays personal: how long can you spend leaving before leaving becomes who you are?
“Slowing Me Down” sets that up well. Pedal steel drifts around his weary vocal while he weighs the person waiting at home against the highway calling him back out. He sounds tired but not sorry for himself, and that’s what gives the song its authority. “Falling Short” picks up the pace with piano and fiddle, telling a story of romantic and professional restlessness. The barroom looseness is a bit of a disguise. Under it is someone always measuring the gap between where he is and where he thinks he should be.
Majcen’s background adds something. He’s the son of Bosnian refugees, grew up in Safety Harbor, Florida, and moved to Nashville to chase a life that can mean more than 50,000 miles on the road in a year. He doesn’t preach about any of it. It shows up in the songs as an awareness of work, sacrifice, family and the cost of going after something uncertain.
“Road Dog Express” strips down to acoustic guitar and voice, with dobro and harmonica adding some dusty melancholy. Majcen sounds almost conversational, like he’s telling a stranger at the next barstool something he’s spent years trying to figure out. Then “Turn Me In” changes the scene completely, with a funky rhythm and horns behind a story of romantic danger and questionable company. It’s a good reminder that he can play a character instead of only narrating himself.
“Don’t You Cry” is softer and more exposed. Its descending chorus and fiddle let the ache show through the road mythology. “Float On Down” is a humid, slow reverie, with organ and guitars setting up a fishing trip that turns into a meditation on aging and memory. “Honey Bee” brings bluesy swagger, slide guitar, piano and a vocal that’s deliberately loose around the edges. The writing gets tightest on “Keep You Off My Mind,” which fits a lot of thought into under three minutes. “Long Way Home” follows a wandering cowboy through Colorado, Texas and Alberta, though the places matter less than the steady thought of home.
The title track is where the record’s central tension really comes into focus. Pat Lyons produced and plays mandolin, lead guitar, pedal steel, banjo and dobro, and he gives the closer its big, open feel. The rest of the band is Lee Williams on bass and vocals, John Venezia on drums, Chris Hurst on piano and organ, and Annabel Dwyer on vocals, and they can sound close and quiet one moment and huge the next. ‘The Leaving Kind’ never fully romanticizes getting away. Majcen knows what the highway gives you and what it takes away. That honesty is what lingers: every mile forward might be a mile back toward the place you left.
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Leon Majcen
Cloverdale Records
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