Highlights: Left Of Center, The 3 Deaths Of Lucky, Unforgivable,
Picacho Peak
First of all, I love the
title. The Coincidentalist is
concise, inventive and it pleasantly reminds me of Robert Forster’s The Evangelist (side note: it’s been five
years, Robert, five bloody years). Two: I find the cover very tasteful, and it
perfectly captures the record’s vibe: slightly dark yet not menacing. But most
importantly, the music is genuinely good. Listening to The Coincidentalist is like drinking warm tea with milk on a nasty
November day.
Howe Gelb (also of Giant
Sand – which is good but one of many) sings in a misty baritone and comes
across like a young, more playful Leonard Cohen. This can’t be a bad thing. The
mood set with “Vortexas” is sustained all the way through, right until the
closing jazzy instrumental "Instigated Chimes” that sounds as if it was
written at least half a century ago. While the whole thing is really consistent,
The Coincidentalist is many things.
It is jazzy, bluesy, country-ish (no wonder, considering Gelb’s roots), and it
has enough room for creativity. The tea has an inventive twist to it, which
comes through diverse instrumentation (you even get to hear chiming bells in
the title track), effective backing vocals (that weird scream in “Triangulate”
is especially wonderful) and a glorious duet with KT Tunstall (“The 3 Deaths Of
Lucky”).
The Coincidentalist does its job in clever and swift 37 minutes. It
doesn’t set the world on fire, nor has any intention of doing anything like
that, but its sounds are physically
pleasing. This album envelopes you in a truly profound way. Also, I’d just like
to note that I’d give a lot to hear Tom Waits cover “Picacho Peak” – surely one
of the most beautiful, timeless and downright best songs of 2013. All that and
more makes The Coincidentalist a
low-key triumph.
8/10
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