Gyllyng Street (EU)

Tom Brosseau is a bit of an acquired taste, but five albums in, the artist is a taste acquired by an ever expanding circle of folk fans. His wispy, whispery voice, a cross between smoky late nights and quiet summer days, at times evokes the adenoidal quality of Bob Dylan, the delicacy of Jeff Buckley, and when he breaks into falsetto, even occasionally Jimmy Somerville. On Cavalier, fans will find Brosseau at his most minimalistic, accompanied on most tracks solely by acoustic guitars. But this sparse background dovetails neatly with his delivery and the highly personal themes of the set. The narratives, such as they are, are reminisces, and even when the lyrics are in the present tense, the events themselves all seem to be recollections of fragments of the past. And none less so than "Committed to Memory," a song which seems to echo from long-gone times, with Brosseau's vocals sounding as scratchy as an old 78 single as he lists off a series of disconnected recollections and firmly fixes them in his mind. In fact, many of the lyrics feel like they've come straight out of the singer's journal, or in modern terms, his MySpace blog. Old flames and old times are revisited, as Brosseau rifles through his past and relives them in emotional detail. No wonder the entire album is seeped in a wistful atmosphere, and blanketed in a sense of melancholy. The past invariably has that effect on us, although Brosseau salvages it from poignancy with some finely tuned lyrical twists. It all makes for a highly intimate experience, an atmosphere the spare arrangements and excellent production heighten. A sublimely bare, bare-your-soul set. ~ Jo-Ann Greene