Get Well Soon - If This Hat Is Missing, I've Gone Hunting

With his Edwyn Collins meets Nick Cave delivery, German frontman Konstantin Gropper was always going to harvest ‘miserable bastard’ complaints aplenty, and he does little to allay ‘em with the opening couplet “This time we will end it / This life ain't got no future, girl.” This ode to suicide, however, is more cabaret than catacomb. Despite his deadpan performance, the Baltic instrumentation is more akin to the sometime faux gothic songsmithery of The Decemberists, with the “Shoot baby shoot” all female backing choruses lifted from some sort of a Rocky Horror Motown Special. Novel, yes: but very, very nice. [Finbarr Bermingham]