Album Review: Justin Hiltner tunnels to your heart on solo debut, ‘1992’
By Richard Marcus
Justin Hiltner’s 1992 quite literally takes your breath away.
How can a musician accompanied only by a banjo (or, on one song, a guitar) capture our attention so completely that we hang onto every word he sings? What makes this release even more remarkable is it’s his first attempt at flying solo.
Hiltner is one of these perplexing renaissance folk who operates on more than two fronts simultaneously without depreciating the worth of their output—the energy is admirable. As an activist, he founded Bluegrass Pride, a non-profit to foster queer inclusion in bluegrass; he produced the first ever showcase of diversity in Bluegrass for The International Bluegrass Music Association, and he serves on the Folk Alliance International’s diversity council. Oh, and as he obviously doesn’t have enough to do, he’s also in the touring production of the recently remounted Broadway show Oklahoma.
It’s impossible to ignore who he is and the other things he does when listening to 1992. Not just because he wears his heart on his sleeve, and definitely not because he’s in your face with his activism, but because his concerns, loves and memories run through these songs like threads in a tapestry. He blends all these colors and hues into the haunting and memorable pictures he sings, so they take up permanent residence in our imaginations.
Stepping out of my subjective position as critic I have to say the album’s title song, “1992” resonated on a deeply personal level – and I’m sure it will for many people of my generation. Having watched and mourned far too many people I knew die over the course of the 1980s from HIV/AIDS, and having read far too many obits about single young men dying from some euphemism for the same disease, this song really struck home.
All of us who lived through those times suffers from a kind of survivor’s guilt—how come I lived and they didn’t? Hiltner does a deep dive into those feelings from an unexpected, but powerful angle, imagining that as he was being born in 1992, somewhere in the same hospital lay a person dying from HIV/AIDS.
His survivor’s guilt is made even more complex as he has also been through a bout with cancer. He doesn’t mention the subject directly in any of the songs, but it’s a subtext running through the recording, and it brings an even deeper poignancy to lines in “1992.” “Were the heavens mocking both of us when they traded me for you?/Cause I didn’t die in 1992.”
In his notes about the songs on the album, he fills us in on pertinent life details. He tells us one song, “Everglades,” is a warning not to go on a cruise and share a cabin with your ex when you’re recovering from chemotherapy, while another, “Another Way,” was written while he was still undergoing treatment.
While both songs would be wonderful even if we didn’t have the back-story, knowing makes them even more captivating. In the case of “Everglades” it makes us even more appreciative of the lyrics “Noah/Why did I let you kiss me?/Why won’t my bones just shout above the din that it’s time to say goodbye?” You can appreciate both why he thought the trip would be a good idea, comfort in the familiar while feeling sick, and his realization that it was a terrible idea. It’s one of those ‘if it didn’t hurt so much it’d be funny’ scenarios, and the great thing about Hiltner is he manages to covey all those sentiments within the short span of a song.
While a great many of the songs on 1992 are introspective in nature, he comes out swinging on “Oligarchs”. A wonderful a capella song that he refers to as being ‘in the tradition of a holler song,’ it’s reminiscent of the old time activist tunes Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger popularized. It doesn’t pull any punches or mince words in its direct attack on those fighting for control of everything we hold sacred—from gender identity to reproductive rights.“Come meet my fists, ye nationalists, come meet my fists/Come meet my fists, ye nationalists, come meet my fists/They’ve never met a face before, but yours is what I’ve made them for.”
Hiltner is that very rare musician who can write highly personal songs in such a way that listeners can’t help but see something of themselves in them. It doesn’t matter the subject—he always manages to achieve something universal from that which is otherwise particular and intimate. He might be writing about himself, but he succeeds in writing about all of us.
With 1992, Justin Hiltner shows just how effective an artist he is. His lilting voice conveys a wonderful diversity of emotion, ensuring listeners are drawn into his storylines. Additionally, he reminds us that the banjo is not the one dimensional instrument that many assume. Not since listening to Rhiannon Giddens have I heard a player bring more emotion and feeling out of its dulcet tones.
1992 is brilliant and delivered with bravery. Hiltner touches our heart, makes us think…we’re lucky to have him.
Richard Marcus has been writing about music, films, and books since 2005. He’s published three books commissioned by Ulysses Press. He currently edits the Books section at Blogcritics.org and is a regular contributor to Qantara.de. He lives in Kingston, Ontario Canada with his feral accomplice and their cat.