Death Cab For Cutie
I Built You A Tower
(ANTI-)
★★★★☆

INTROVERTS of the world rejoice — Death Cab For Cutie are a releasing a new album.

Formed in Washington State in the ’90s, the US band has refined a particular style of introspective indie rock, centring the dense, often vulnerable lyrics and voice of frontman Ben Gibbard.

Over the last few years they’ve been playing 20th anniversary tours of their foundational records Transatlanticism and Plans. At the same time, Gibbard was dealing with the breakdown of his marriage.

All of which informs I Built You A Tower, something of a return to form. There’s some thrilling jagged guitar riffage and propulsive drumming (Punching The Flowers and How Heavenly A State) and Gibbard’s knack for memorable and melodic lines remains.

Synonymous with youthful angst in the 2000s, it turns out they are pretty good at middle aged discontent too.

Kacey Musgraves
Middle Of Nowhere
(Lost Highway)
★★★★☆

“THE bulk of this record was made during the longest single period of my life,” US singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves says about her new album. “It actually felt incredible being alone and existing in a space not defined by anyone else.”

Despite this statement, loneliness is often present, most explicitly on the amusing Dry Spell, with its reference to being “lonely with a capital H… I’ve been sitting on the washing machine.” If the listener isn’t clear what the country star is getting at, she elaborates: “Ain’t nobody’s tool up in my shed.”

While Musgraves stands as a proud progressive in the notoriously conservative musical genre, Middle Of Nowhere is ultimately middle of the road country pop. But everything sounds so effortless and relaxed, with a charming lyrical clarity and spacious production, it goes down like a fine wine.

Mountain Of Youth
Nowhere, NW
(Strolling Bones Records)
★★★☆☆

AS well as performing as Mountain Of Youth, Hunter Morris works as a fly-fishing guide and conservationist in the streams and forests of North Georgia in the US.

I’m sure this attraction to the natural world feeds into the music but his impressive first album seems more interested in people. He describes the title as “an imaginary hometown that everyone comes from,” and the songs, literary small town blues, are full of characters at crossroads in their life — lonely, lost or self-medicated.

Produced by Ben Hackett (Craig Finn, Patterson Hood), Morris plays an earthy Americana, combining Heartland Rock with a ’90s grunge sensibility that brings to mind bands like Son Volt and Good Looks. On opener Automatic Days his vocals have strong Tom Petty vibes.

A promising debut, Morris may soon have to consider giving up the day job.