Team

The understated, calmly tremulous singing and delicate guitar playing that Holly Throsby makes her immediate calling card isn't something that will transform a genre, though she'd already built up a firm Australian following with her work before the release of her fifth album Team. That she's got a ear for her Nick Drake and other similarly understated and passionate performers is clear enough. Where Team aims to make an impact is in its contrasts, with gentle formalism on the one hand and, sometimes unexpectedly, arrangement experimentation on the other. It can come down to her multi-tracked vocals, supple string parts, or an occasional full rock band instrumentation, all suffused with a sense of separation and space that makes it all sound like it's being done live in a huge room. It also reveals a bit of formalism on the part of Throsby and her collaborators, but it makes songs like "It's Only Need" and "Waiting for Me" engaging at the least, and even like "Come Back to See Me," with its piano-and-vocal-only approach, tastefully enjoyable enough. The album's most adventurous moments find Throsby emphasizing rhythm and minimalist focus to excellent effect: a song like "Here Is My Co-Pilot" feels like an acoustic variant on Kate Bush's early- to mid-'80s elegance, endlessly looping in on itself while propelling forward. Meanwhile, a song like "To See You Out" works as its own intense miniature of feeling, with her gently relentless repetition on the chorus balancing out the seemingly more aimless verses, which become a sudden and intentionally startling focus. ~ Ned Raggett