Widowspeak - All Yours (2015) [FLAC]

  Genre: Rock
  Styles: Dream Pop, Indie
  Source: CD (log + cue)
  Codec: FLAC
  Bit rate: ~ 900 kbps
  Bit depth: 16
  Sample rate: 44.1 kHz

  01 All Yours
  02 Narrows 
  03 Dead Love (So Still) 
  04 Stoned 
  05 Girls 
  06 Borrowed World 
  07 Cosmically Aligned 
  08 My Baby's Gonna Carry On 
  09 Coke Bottle Green 
  10 Hands 

  For Widowspeak, the years after the release of 2013's Almanac and the Swamps EP were marked by departures and returns: Molly Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas left Brooklyn for the Catskills and reunited with Woods' Jarvis Taveniere, who produced their debut, when it was time to make All Yours. Using his gift for making any album he works on sound effortless, Taveniere helps them embrace Almanac's velvety country and classic rock even more fully and naturally, with results that sound more fresh-faced than theatrical. Compared to the duo's other albums, All Yours is downright restrained: "Hands" echoes the gentle drift of their debut even though it glides along on tasteful strings and keyboards instead of distorted guitars, while "Narrows" transforms the duo's lingering shoegaze impulses into shimmering drones. However, this pared-down approach makes room for Widowspeak's increasing twang to emerge even more confidently on the title track, as well as for more adventurous moves like "My Baby's Gonna Carry On," which uses '60s and '70s psych-rock trappings -- a "Sunshine Superman" bassline, rippling Rhodes fills, and busy percussion -- in ways that sound remarkably ungimmicky. All Yours also puts the spotlight on just how much Widowspeak's songwriting has grown over the years; "Coke Bottle Green" is a fascinating combination of traditional country and folk structure and 21st century domesticity ("I want windows I can fill/With any life I can't kill"). Like Fleetwood Mac, whose influence permeated Almanac, Hamilton and Thomas excel at setting heartbroken lyrics to addictively catchy melodies