The brother half of, excellent folk duo, Angus & Julia Stone follows his sister's sophomore solo offering with his own debut. Unfortunately the excitement of an Angus Stone solo outing quickly evaporates into the mellow calm of "River Love", with gingerly strummed acoustic and barely there fiddle. It would be a nice introduction if the rest of the album, or even just Stone's vocals, took a cue from the more kicked-up second half of the song and woke up occasionally. The typical hushed cool of Stone's vocals is traded a bit too often for a mumbling shuffle that sounds like a Bob Dylan impression, with the nearly spoken tone of banjo laced "Monsters" and meandering "Be What You Be" the biggest offenders. The result is an unfortunately limp album from the normally wistfully romantic singer-songwriter, where nothing quite comes together and the extended six-minutes of "Only A Woman" feels like an unending listen. Laid-back offerings like the understated flicker of "Clouds Above" drifts by unnoticed, while his attempts to shake things up on "Wooden Chair" with a more of an uptempo strum and sweetly whistled backdrop are dragged down by the lethargic groan of the vocals. At the very least, the snarling electric guitar baring its teeth through "Bird On The Buffalo" offers some semblance of life on an otherwise barren effort. Stone clearly aims for an understated moody atmosphere on the album, but the charmless lack of spark in his vocals leaves this a worn-down sleeper.
Seek - "Bird On The Buffalo", "River Love", "Broken Brights"
For fans of - Bon Iver
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