This is one of those rare albums that is recommend by a friend at the right time and place so that it syncs perfectly with the particular tilt of your world at the moment. Words Are Dead is one such album and Amy is one such friend as she advocated–actually demanded–that people stop and hear Horse Feather’s latest (you can read her spot on review over at eMusic).

Though the arrangements are sparse, conjuring the brisk chill of late autumn or the hard snap of deep winter, there still remains a quality of lushness and fullness to them. Justin Ringle and Peter Broderick craft music that is best described as the intersection of moody folk and bluegrass. There are elements of Norfolk and Western’s melancholia but rubbed with the saltiness of The Black Twig Pickers resulting in songs that play out like a long sigh but are weighted just enough so that they do not just drift away on the slightest of breezes. “Blood On The Snow” is a perfect example of this with the strings providing a counter melody to the vocals as the roll through the piece. “Honest Doubters” sees the violin come forward to stab home the main melody often competing with the vocals to wrestling them for center stage.

Words Are Dead is truly one of those albums that becomes a seasonal piece, an album that every year you pull out to listen to as you watch the world slow as it heads into Winter’s slumber. It would be more that worth it to head over to their Myspace page you can stream and download four of the tracks from the album. Highly recommended.

Possessing no discernible reference to the mythical city of the same name Newsom has dropped an album that is just as enigmatic and shrouded in mysticism. After reading so many glowing reviews I felt enticed to pick up Ys and see what lay within and having not heard her debut, The Milk-Eyed Mender, I was not entirely sure what I would encounter. While the album spans a scant five tracks each song is often a sprawling epic that is at once minimal and dense, gilded with metaphors, allegories, and allusions that will leave a listener fretting for sometime at each song like they were tiny knots.

The trouble I have is that I want to love this album as an album but I’m not. Some might take exception to Newsom’s delivery style, a sort of breathy twitter punctuated by squeaks, however I do not since it seems to fit the material so well. Ys is more of a literary experience, one that is best enjoyed as a performance like the work of Shakespeare or studied like The Divine Comedy or Beowulf. The music of the album is regulated to the background, it is akin to the soft strumming of minstrel to help set the mood or provide moments of dramatic flair to the tale. Newsom fleshes out her work with her harp and songs are occasionally padded with soft string arrangements but both are unobtrusive never really rising above the lyrics which leaves me wanting, particularly given the length of each song which range from a brief seven minutes to one that strains at seventeen.

As literature I love Ys. Newsom proves herself to be both a deft poet and a nimble storyteller, drawing characters that are compelling and breathing life into them as she relates their tales. Take for instance the improbably love story of a monkey and bear who attempt to run away to live out the remainder of their lives together.

but still;
they have got to pay the bills
hadn’t they?
that is what the monkey’d say

so, with the courage of a clown, or a cur
or a kite, jerking tight at its tether
in her dun-brown gown of fur
and her jerkin’ of swansdown and leather

Bear would sway on her hind legs;
the organ would grind dregs of song, for the pleasure
of the children, who’d shriek
throwing coins at her feet
then recoiling in terror

sing, dance, darling
c’mon, will you dance, my darling?
oh darling, there’s a place for us
can we go, before I turn to dust?
oh my darling, there’s a place for us

Ys is ambitious and a very worthwhile experience as it pushes the boundaries of what people might consider the conventional forms of Folk music. Yet it is an exhausting listen as it demands your attention: miss a bar or a phrase and you could be hopelessly lost in the story. Highly recommended but with that caveat.

The first thing that struck me about the album happened long before I cued it up for listening: the album cover. Aside from the obvious comparisons to Smell The Glove the stark and odd choice for artwork is no indication of the the soft, serene Country brushed songs nestled inside. To Find Me Gone is a soft yet crisp summer album that floats along in a reminiscent manner, channeling the work of The Band and at times Neil Young’s work on Harvest though it maintains a distinct voice that marks Vetiver as it’s own entity and demonstrates how Andy Cabic has been evolving the group’s sound beyond the confectionery psych-folk sound that marked the first album.

“Lost & Found” is a perfect example of the slow, breezy sound of the album as the drifting strings and breathy vocals capture the sensation of laying on your back picking shapes out of the clouds passing over head while the bright pop and squeak of the guitar so closely mimics sparrows flitting from tree to ground and back again. It is undemanding yet beautiful, with quiet melodies that slowly lull care and worry from your mind, like the cascading pedal steel work on “Busted” which adds a layer of expansiveness to the snug production.

Not all the tracks possess a somnolescent quality. “Red Lantern Girls” rounds the midpoint to explode into wall of sound with the lead guitar grinding out endless sustains on waves of distortion while the drumming steps up out of hushed percussive elements to pound out the back beat. It is at once a surprising turn and a refreshing one like jumping into a cold river on a hot June day. “Won’t Be Me” maintains the pace with a sweetened retro-flavored country number that swings and sways with the reverb turned up just enough to give the feeling that you are in surrounded by dancers on a late Saturday night in a local dance hall.

To Find Me Gone is wistful, sweet with just the barest taste of bitterness for substance, and is the perfect compliment to lazy summer days. While it is not a demanding album that challenges the listener with depth in lyrics and breadth in arrangements it is a finely crafted work that is comfortable in its fondness for the folk rock of the Seventies. Recommended. You can pick it up at either eMusic, which has “Busted” as a free track at the moment, or Amazon.

*Note*
There seems to be some debate as to the track titles and arrangement on the album, most notable are the write-ups referring to the scorching end of “Red Lantern Girls”, track nine of the limited release CD and the eMusic release, however it appears that the eMusic copy is fairly well screwed up with both the tracks and the labeling having been shuffled all over the place. Having spent the better part of the weekend trying to tease out what track is what, a enormously difficult task, I might have it right thanks to a kind user over at eMusic and some samples detective work (streaming at Vetiverse wasn’t working). Corrections, however, would be most appreciated.