MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
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Album reviews
Latest releases from Hiss Golden Messenger, Joao Selva and Veronica Swift
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
Hiss Golden Messenger
Quietly Blowing It
(Merge)
★★
I REALLY don’t understand all the acclaim Hiss Golden Messenger — aka North Carolina-based singer-songwriter MC Taylor — gets from critics and his peers.
At his best, he creates Southern-fried alt-country with an emotional and musical punch — check out the bright-eyed single Sanctuary on this, his 12th studio record written and recorded between March and July last year.
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