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Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter |
| Like, Love, Lust & the Open Halls of the Soul |
| Barsuk | 2007 | Album |
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It all seems so esoteric to describe an album, anymore. I mean really, no one is really out there making a by-the-book country rock album – they’re making Americana, or Roots, or whatever the nom du jour might be.
Definition has become of paramount importance, and some albums don’t fall merely alphabetically into their genre.
The new album by Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter, Like, Love, Lust & the Open Halls of the Soul is one of those, not easy one to define. The twelve songs contained fall somewhere between country, instrumental sounds a la Gustavo Santolalla’s work, familiar score from the “Brokeback Mountain” soundtrack, and a lovely, screeching caterwaul. A voice like Sykes’, slow and purposeful is pure barroom – a purely otherworldly instrument, as though the bar were more within shouting distance from Mercury than Mesa. Songs like “Eisenhower Moon” and “The Air Is Thin” are the stuff that make for memorable records. They are thoroughly haunting, burning, tenuous, breaking with every tradition in their brief disguises.
Sykes comes from the ashes of luminary bands like Whiskeytown and Hominy. Her previous albums, released slowly since 1999 have garnered a moderate buzz, but none seem to approach what Like, Love Lust & the Open Halls of the Soul does with relative ease. It’s an unsettling piece of work – more, a dynamic piece of art, that Sykes has conceived, but it counts as one of the most rewarding listens of 2007. For fans of Lucinda Williams, Patti Griffin, and the like, this is more than recommended. Perhaps Sykes is that person who can sufficiently eclipse their influences.
Yeah, it all seems rather far-flung. By-the-book, remember, is a bygone concept. |
| Erick Mertz |
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