A whole world can change in five years. Since his 2021 studio record, Americana singer-songwriter Brent Funkhouser witnessed his world shapeshift and expand in surprising ways. His art sprouted wings and took off on its own, too. It was an unexpected twist, but Funkhouser embraced it. With his brand-new record, Homegrown, the musician gathers songs from his catalog with a pinch of new cuts. Nine songs envelope the listener like a fleece blanket, yet they’re as sweet as honeysuckle and as gritty as the earth. Songs like the opening track “Apple Blossom Time,” a collaboration with Rebecca Berlin, and the somber, smoldering “Red Moon” take root down in his musical soul. He excavates feelings of home and how that changes over time. It might not seem like it, but there’s always a home, whatever that may mean in any given moment.
Funkhouser demonstrates his fortitude as a human being with “Everything’s Fine,” piano and strings aching like blisters in the mid-summer sun. He reaches his hands into the dirt and laments nature’s crumbling, as he, and everyone around him, looks on in horror. “They drained the river and put in a rail line,” he sings. “Oh, but everything’s fine…” His voice buckles beneath the weight of the world, as wildfires consume the West Coast, inflation creates more chaos, and the poor grow poorer. And it’s Mother Earth that suffers most.
The emotional backbone of the record fleshes out with the guitar-bristled follow-up “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and closing number “Mary, Keep the Faith,” an acoustic-bound plea to stay the course and let the storm dissipate on the horizon. “All that’s left is to try,” he encourages. The lyrics address growing anxieties about the world and one’s place within it, but the arrangement offers hope, like a sliver of sunlight breaking the black clouds overhead. That’s the very nature of Brent Funkhouser’s new album. It confronts reality head-on, but not without extending a comforting embrace to soothe all doubt.
Homegrown carries with it a windswept weariness that we all must endure sooner or later. But that doesn’t mean we should lie down and die. On the contrary, Brent Funkhouser pushes us to accept every part of ourselves. What we’ve been through informs who we are and who we will become. In only 32 minutes, Funkhouser guides the listener through seemingly unnavigable waters until rising on the other side on dry land.
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