Debut album from Denver trucker turned singer-songwriter.
If you appreciate Lambchop’s mellow mordancy, you’ll like Nathaniel Rateliff, the 31-year-old from Bay, Missouri (population: 60) who has been living in Colorado since he was 19. Judging by the contents of his debut album, he’s hardly been whooping it up there: In Memory of Loss is a feast of wry introspection, the titles – Longing and Losing, Whimper and Wail, We Never Win – speaking volumes about the mood of droll self-regard.
Recorded in a Chicago studio with producer Brian Deck (Califone, Iron & Wine, Modest Mouse), it’s not all downbeat contemplation. But it says a lot about Rateliff’s worldview that he should place the perkiest number, You Make All the Noise, which is an almost ELO-ishly infectious ditty, complete with Mr Blue Sky rhythm and handclaps, as the penultimate track. Or maybe he’s just got a good sense of humour. Certainly you have to wait until halfway through the album, and a song called Shroud, before you get anything remotely resembling a pop-rock tune, surrounded as it is by song after song of plangent acoustica, sparsely arranged, the lugubrious atmosphere enhanced by piano and cello.
Lees de rest van deze review op BBC CD recensies (Engels)
Bron: BBC Music