Living with grief is one of the most challenging assignments every one of us has to take on. The ones we love are imprinted on our memories and artifacts. At times, it feels like they are everywhere, and while that can overwhelm us, sometimes we can reach a place where we feel the presence and pain coexist in acceptance. Asheville, North Carolina-based Colin Miller’s Losin’ was written after the death of his close friend Gary King, who was a father figure to Miller over the past several years. Asheville luminaries Wednesday also paid tribute to King on “Gary”, a highlight of their 2021 record Twin Plagues.
Miller became King’s caregiver, giving him haircuts, watching NASCAR with him, and keeping him safe when he insisted on smoking near his oxygen tank, which is bittersweetly detailed in the highlight “Cadillac”. Miller describes his friend and his preferences, but knows he will be blamed if something happens. It’s a beautiful moment that pivots from a loving tribute to a reality check in one line: “Sucking down coffee, Pall Malls, and oxygen / If you blow up this time, the blame will be all on me”.
After King passed, Colin Miller stuck around for a while to take care of the home until it was sold to developers. This time spent doing everyday tasks while wrestling with the missing King is when these songs took shape. That space, the tension between needing to move on and not yet knowing how, is a central theme of this collection. He mentions feeling as if he stays in the place he and King shared, he will die in silence there. This collection of songs is the alternate plan.
While the list of records that wrestle with grief over loss is extensive, Colin Miller’s account of his experience is elevated by his matter-of-fact approach and gift for gut-punch lines, like “Lost Again” and its tearjerking opening line, “I don’t need another Christmas morning / I don’t need another birthday picture cake / I just need you here for a second.” I hadn’t even considered how much I have craved that when I’m thinking about my parents, and that the timing of their passing prevented them from meeting my children.
The songs have a gentle, laid-back quality that is perfect for supporting his observations. His collaborators include most of MJ Lenderman and his band, the Wind. Alex Farrar, who produced Wednesday’s essential Rat Saw God and Lenderman’s career peak to date, Manning Fireworks, gives Losin’ a warm, low-key but not low-fi sound.
Much of Losin’ sounds like the quieter moments on Lenderman’s earlier records, with improved production. When the guitars do get louder, as on highlight “Hasbeen”, it is a welcome gearshift, even if it ends with a devastating couplet: “I lost it at a Wendy’s when the little speaker asked me / ‘Was that you on the TV?'” The aforementioned “Cadillac” thumps along not unlike a Wednesday song. The attention to detail calls to mind Karly Hartzman’s gift for storytelling, and Lenderman’s gift for blending absurdity and heartbreak is also a touchpoint.
While there are moments of pure, harrowing grief on Losin’, even more than that, the listener is left with the lasting feeling of Miller’s love for King. The small details of their friendship captured across these nine songs are what many of us are left with when someone we love passes: a funny story, a longing to do that special thing together again, a chance to have one more conversation. His storytelling skills make this King and their relationship come to vivid life.
There is another way this record could have gone. Plenty of harrowing accounts of losing loved ones are easy to admire but hard to revisit; for me, Touche Amore‘s Stage Four, as brilliant as it is, is too much to bear having been through the exact situation as lead singer Jeremy Bolm. I can’t put myself back in the space of grieving the loss of my mother to cancer over and over. As painful as that can be, there is value in that approach, for Bolm and me, and others in the same space.
Then there’s the approach Miller takes. There’s something hopeful Miller is reaching for here, even in the darkest places, that makes Losin’ endlessly replayable. This record made me miss my mother and others I’ve lost, too, but it feels more like Colin Miller and I are sharing stories and things we miss. Put it on and remember the good times with those you have lost. Smile through the tears. It’s what Gary and your lost loved ones would want.