Laura Gibson - Beasts of Season
For all its organic charms, this is a record destined to skim the ears as late night silence-filler
Once the first note drifts past her lips, you know Laura Gibson’s got a problem. But, for once, it’s not the love-weary issue that often burdens singer-songwriters. No, Gibson’s torment is much more constricting: the Portland-based songstress sounds like many another female cooer furrowing out an alt-folk pathway, charging her to avoid open-mic obscurity. Which is a real pity, because her fourth studio album Beasts of Season is a delicate, sometimes breathtaking, gasp of reflective paean and instrumentation. Standout number Spirited crashes in like waves against a shoreline; strings and percussion leading a charge for Gibson’s pressing mew. Gloomier of tone, Funeral Song and Sleeper’s brass-parp weeping are divine, tear-duct moistening moments. Yet for all its organic charms, this is a record which, without due attention, is destined to skim the ears as late night silence-filler. And that, no matter how Gibson weaves it, is definitely a problem. [Billy Hamilton]