Cold Specks – Neuroplasticity
Slip on the second album from Cold Specks (aka Canada-born/UK-based singer-songwriter Al Spx), and it’s the voice that hooks you first. As opener A Broken Memory awakens to voodoo organ chords and mournful Mardi Gras trumpet, smoky vocals implore a darling to ‘dance’ in a tenor that’s tantalisingly difficult to pin down – appropriate for a performer who cloaks herself in not one but two nom de plumes.
The album title refers to the brain’s capacity to form new connections and learn new things – a meaning that’s reflected in an expanded musical palette that pushes Neuroplasticity beyond the ‘doom soul’ territory confidently staked out on 2012 debut I Predict a Graceful Expulsion. And speaking of new connections: following Spx’s appearance on Swans’ To Be Kind, Michael Gira returns the favour by embedding rumbling guest vocals at a couple of junctures, their infrasonic undertow most powerfully felt on closer Season of Doubt.