Small Town Boredom - Notes From The Infirmary

This is quiet, very quiet indeed. I can hear the footsteps of the last remaining Norman Records workers over the top of it. The guitars are picked delicately and intimately and the vocals are hushed in the extreme. The vocals immediately remind me of something, I guess one could be Tindersticks and also Sophia but there's something else - its on the tip of my tongue. Its been pointed out to me that the first track sounds like 'Cody' by Mogwai. The album is the perfect example of a slow burner, each track takes ages to reveal itself, there's certainly something of a very miserable The XX in the overall sound in that the guitar and bass work together mainly playing only single notes and certainly never anything too fancy. The albums strength seems to be in this simplicity and understatement, I saw an idiot on TV saying that the next XX album should have more players and strings on it but to me that would ruin it, similarly on here you occasionally wish for some colour and variation but maybe that isn't the point. Its gonna be too miserable and one dimensional for some but in going down this route they've created quite a singular vision.