Album Review: Brett Kissel, What Is Life?

If stupid COVID-19 has been good for anything other than yanking obscenely polluting cruise ships out of the planet’s fragile oceans, it has been to serve as a reminder that you can take absolutely nothing for granted in this world. 

While most of us sad sacks were grappling with that sobering notion in stretchy pants while binging on Netflix, country star Brett Kissel was writing vivid, high-minded songs devoted to the kind of introspection one might expect to encounter at an ashram in Goa, not on a country album from the pride of rural Alberta. 

As if to ensure we don’t miss the point, Kissel’s fifth major-label studio album and follow-up to 2020’s charting Now or Never begins with a soliloquy by our man, appropriately backed by the sound of waves hitting the shore, wherein he reveals his recent attempts to answer the question posed by the album’s title. 

What follows is a collection of songs fleshing out that theme, including spry lead single “Make A Life, Not A Living” which, to paraphrase, advocates working to live rather than living to work while recognizing that peace and love are more important cash or cars, albeit in language more buttery than that.

With one exception (the twangy, two-stepping “Slidin’ Your Way,” a clear concession to Alabama jukeboxes) What Is Life? is singularly devoted to mankind’s biggest themes, which means Kissel’s lyrics are front and centre. He’s up for the task. Spectacularly poetic and borderline elegiac, the ballad “Die To Go Home” looks back on the kid who couldn’t wait to escape his small town… until he couldn’t wait to return to it having been spit out by the big city.  

Another ballad, the piano powered “From This Day Forward” paints a musical Rembrandt of marriage stretching from a New Year’s Eve proposal through drunken nights in the trenches. Also lovely and humbling is “Everything in the Rearview” whereby our hero examines his past through the lens of the present with all the regret and fondness such an exercise demands. 

So yes, What Is Life? is beautiful and melodic and earnest and important and nearly perfect… except for (forgive me sweet Jesus, but it must be said) three spoken-word bits featuring the Kissel offspring which, though surely adorable for Kissel and wife Cecilia, are about as fun as the guerilla backyard slideshow sprung on you by the neighbours you thought invited you over for a friendly drink. Which won’t happen this summer, so score another one for COVID-19. For that, and for providing Kissel with the soul-affirming fodder presented here. Win, win.

What Is Life? was released April 9, 2021 by Warner Music Canada.
Listen to it here.