Labels: Fat Cat Records
Review by: Alex Deller
Seeing as its sleeve is adorned with olde worlde woodcuts of wolfmen, tangled trees, black dogs and prancing homunculi you might be forgiven for expecting something a little darker than the ten light, drifting, folksy numbers on offer here, wandering wistfully across the hills and bringing with them a sense of mystery and mild wonder.
Whilst tuneful, each track is sheathed in mumbles and whispers, burrowing themselves away alongside muffled sleighbells and bright guitars that shimmer with illusory grace, occasionally spreading out into muted expanses of gentle noise that crackle and fizz but never threaten to get anywhere near out of hand. The end result would not be out of place echoing through the hallways of some once-grand country manor, tinkling woozily forth in a way that doesn’t so much sound faraway or distant as belonging to another era entirely.