WIDOWSPEAK
ALL YOURS (CAPTURED TRACKS)
Widowspeak has grown up in a lot of ways. The band's third album, All Yours, is one that could only come from Molly Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas: a honed and elegant interweaving of dream-pop and slowcore rock and roll, easygoing melodies and dusty, snaking guitars.
It's also their finest release to date: ten beautiful songs that are refreshingly straightforward yet built from the same well-chosen and deftlyused tools the band has always worked with.
All Yours is ambitious without feeling labored-over, anchored in the strengths of Widowspeak's consistent influences.
There are those familiar Morriconecome-Verlaine guitar passages, moody and country-tinged instrumentation, watery tremolo, velvety stacked vocals.
You can hear Molly's affection for The Cranberries and The Sundays in the wavering melodies of "Dead Love" or "Girls", and Rob's adoration of George Harrison and Robbie Robertson in his brilliantly economical guitar playing.
The result is an aesthetically diverse and profoundly nostalgic sound; indebted to past eras without feeling dated.