While humans have been steadily distancing themselves from the natural world for centuries, the theory that we’ll see the final stages of cohabitation within a few generations now seems less like a leftist debate and more like a very serious reality. Kids are growing up with no memories of hills, valleys, oceans or stars, not as a result of urban economic restraint, but simply because that natural world, as some see it, offers little reward. Michael Ruppert throws out a lot of ideas in the recent documentary Collapse, not all of them correct or even sane, but his thesis is irrefutable: we have reached a point of no return with the Earth, and our infrastructure could fail well before any possible, projected turnaround. Good luck driving the trucks to build the wind farms when you can’t afford the gasoline.

If Ruppert’s emotional modes are desperation, fear and no small amount of grotesque self-satisfaction, the modes of Midlake’s similarly ecological and doomsaying third album, The Courage of Others, are nostalgia, regret and mourning. Ruppert speaks to warn, Tim Smith & Co. sing in remembrance. Smith is certainly someone who knows what it’s like to stand inside a valley, and herein he laments the day all the valleys are filled in.

If I feel like I have a good idea of what Smith is getting at, it’s only because Midlake are too dedicated to be misunderstood. This is an album made not only by worried young men, but by a band on the cusp of success, and for both reasons they do not waste breath. On “Core of Nature,” we get summation via a paraphrasing of the hiker’s code: “I will remain no more than is required of me.”

But the album is not an environmental screed, nor a wagging finger, and it's hardly protest music at all. Like The Lorax, the sign-of-the-times attempt to go enviro-political by Dr. Seuss, what should be ridiculous and overwrought instead comes across as tremendously sad, perhaps because both narratives seem to be taking place in the aftermath, looking back.

Speaking of looking back, The Courage of Others is a deceptively straightforward attempt to dig up the bones of pre-’80s folk music and craft a beast for our age, one more bemused than angry. Smith isn’t aligning himself with the radicals of decades past, simply standing, alone, where they used to be. It’s also the least rocking of all Midlake’s albums, with only “Children of the Grounds” rising above mid-tempo, and the fiery electric solo in “Winter Dies” acting as one of a few reminders that this is a post-Neil Young recording. Though previous albums touched on ‘70s AM pop and a keyboard-heavy Radiohead bent, Courage is a wholly naturalistic affair (of course), with an unimpeachable sense of sound. It’s that ability to build upon, rather than merely imitate the music of previous generations that helps retain Midlake’s cult fan base of young indie rockers and boomers alike.

Because of this adherence to a particular idea, the thing must be taken as a whole to make any sort of sense; clicking from spot to spot reveals practically nothing. The power is in the smallest moments, and how they build up the whole piece: the spiritual harmony in “Acts of Man,” the steady pace of percussion throughout, the way Smith sings “I will not approach you at all” in “The Courage of Others.” He has one of the more distinctive, disarming voices in independent music, which goes beyond merely selling his sometimes lofty lyrics, turning them from palpable to profound (he thankfully eschews the more psychedelic elements of his influences, no singing about crystal swans or some such shit). 

In the middle, the almost solitary “Fortune” wraps a beautiful melody around punching commentary: “it is what it is / the work of human hands.” But what is the courage of others, really? We did the work, but let the other guy be brave enough to clean up. I hate the hippies as much as anybody, but to hope it’s not too late (“past peak oil,” as Ruppert bluntly calls it) has to be only human.

Artist: Midlake
Album: The Courage of Others (Bella Union, 42 minutes)
Rating: 4.5/5
Key Tracks: “Winter Dies,” “Fortune,” “The Courage of Others”