Southerly - Storyteller & the Gossip Columnist

Southerly seem to tick all the right boxes for admission into the hearts and iPods of zeitgeist-alt-America. Central creative prodigy à la Beirut? Check - Southerly began as the, ahem, “nom-de-tune” of Kirst Kreuger, who writes, sings, engineers, yadda yadda yadda… Scenester kudos? Check - hailing from indie-mecca Portland, he’s toured with Laura Viers, Colin Meloy and Sufjan Stevens. Unthreatening ‘alt’ something-or-other sound which layers classical-traditional songwriting with strings and more for a hint of eclecticism? Check - and while the result isn’t adventurous enough to match the aforementioned Mr. Stevens, it makes for a pleasantly varied 40 minutes. But a more accurate comparison is with the critically-forgotten (these days, at least) Badly Drawn Boy - no bad thing (he’s better than you probably remember), but this is a comparison less likely to impress bearded tastemakers. A shame, since Storyteller & the Gossip Columnist’s charms, though modest, are certainly worth talking about.