Album Review – Ken Pomeroy’s “Cruel Joke”

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photo: Kali Spitzer


#570.1 (Folk-inspired Americana) and #550.7 (Red Dirt) on the Country DDS.


Waves of melancholy emanate from your audio source, first prickling your senses like a slightly uncomfortable breeze moving over the skin that makes you crave something more warm and saccharine, but ultimately proving to be effective in welling repressed memories to the forefront of the mind in a cathartic and cleansing action, leaving one with a deeper sense of comfort, and something closely resembling a quiet ease.

Ken Pomeroy didn’t choose music. Music chose her. She heard “Jet Plane” by John Denver at the age of six, and something about the words and melody struck her as crucial in how it made her feel. Making other people feel that same sense of bliss through music became her muse. By the time she was 11, Pomeroy was writing songs herself, and just a few years later, appearing at shows and festivals in her native state of Oklahoma any beyond, precocious and full of promise, even if not completely formed just yet, but embraced by her contemporaries as a daughter of the Red Dirt world.

Ken Pomeroy performed as a solo artist and songwriter. When fiddle player Kyle Nix from the Turnpike Troubadours formed a solo band amid Turnpike’s hiatus, it was Ken he drafted as a side player and someone to spell him at center stage, sensing that decision would look smart in the future. Now signed to Rounder Records, both Ken Pomeroy and her new album Cruel Joke are quickly being offered up by the initiated whenever names are requested for the best new music discoveries.

Maybe it’s a more of a romantic notion that Native Americans have deeper ties to nature and the living world than a truth. But Pomery’s Cherokee blood might be partly to blame for the perspective of this album being so tethered to animalia. Her Native name “ᎤᏍᏗ ᏀᏯ ᏓᎶᏂᎨ ᎤᏍᏗᎦ” translates to “Little Wolf with Yellow Hair,” and the wolf, coyote, horse, dog, and cicada all play fundamental roles in the stories of this album.


Sometimes these creatures become the centerpiece. But sometimes they’re stand-ins for human emotions and experiences, synthesized into the storytelling conveying Pomeroy’s most intimate insecurities and thoughts. Like all great songwriting, oversharing is never a concern. In many respects, it’s essential. The revelation of feelings of inadequacy, and the discovery of truths only comes from the courageous exploration of the deepest crevices of the mind.

In Ken Pomeroy’s case, this comes through most cuttingly in the revelations of corporal punishment, if not outright abuse at the hands of her mother. Cruel Joke at times is less a series of songs, and more a series of moments, like the strength found in a moment of silence during the beginning of the song “Stranger,” or when she talks about finally recalling and confronting unresolved memories with “Innocent Eyes.”

Sometimes Ken’s voice and guitar is all that’s necessary to weave the most powerful of these moments, even if more complete accompaniment eventually joins in. This is not a country album, and is only guilty of being Red Dirt by regional affiliation. This is a folk album. The same elements that will allow some to get lost in the passages of Cruel Joke are the same that will be completely lost on others, failing to grasp onto the beauty as it passes by like gentle noise as opposed to involved melody.

Ken Pomeroy requests attentive listening to really unravel the beauty of this album, and sometimes that request feels lofty. But the opening song “Pareidolia,” and her song with John Moreland “Coyote” confer a bit more accessibility. Some will regard this album as one of the best of the annual cycle. The songs carry that weighty aspect to them that often precedes that assessment. Whether it demands your attention enough will be the question. For some, it will positively enthrall.

8.2/10

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