Alexander Tucker - Furrowed Brow

Funny that Tucker's brackeny folk music, ringing with hums, harmonies and heavy metals, should so remind me of Justin Timberlake's latest. It's not the subject-matter: while Timberlake sings of getting down, Tucker drones ghostily about oneness and terror and spreading dawns. It's not the instruments: Tucker chooses acoustic guitar, mandolin and bul bul tarang over Timbaland synths. It must just be the way these artists' voices butt up against themselves, multiplying, crystallising, firing furnaces. Though the pastoral Gothicism of 'Superherder' and 'You Are Many' is utterly compelling, it's the 'Broken Dome' instrumental that gives the most visceral charge. Lyrics are broken into mere sound, a clarinet sneers and staggers, and a fiddle saws till the world's gone pliable. Furrowed Brow is like Iron & Wine after too long in the bayou; like a fireside so warm it makes you psychedelically sick. [Sean Michaels]