Brown Recluse - Evening Tapestry

Brown Recluse formed in 2006 around the core of Timothy Meskers and Mark Saddlemire. Their debut release, the six-song Black Sunday EP, is a brilliant blast of pop invention, blending influences from the psych pop of The Zombies and Margo Guryan, the tropicalia of Os Mutantes and 60s producers like Joe Meek and Phil Spector. Over the next year, the duo expanded to a six-piece that played numerous East Coast shows with bands as varied as The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Tyvek and Dirty Projectors, writing new material and winning new fans along the way. The Soft Skin EP was recorded in mid-2007 and released on Slumberland in September 2009. Its pastoral, psychedelic vibe brings mind the sunshine pop of Curt Boettcher s The Millennium/Sagittarius projects as well as familiar touchstones Brian Wilson, The Clientele and the Elephant 6 collective. Evening Tapestry is Brown Recluse s long-awaited debut album. From the summertime daydream of opener Hobble to Your Tomb to the 50s-tinged pop of Statue Garden to the folky strum-fest Monday Moon, Evening Tapestry shows a band at the peak of their powers, effortlessly combining elements old and new into a rich and very distinctive whole. Meskers is really on fire here, his melodic vocals soaring in perfect complement to the deceptively complex tunes and gorgeous arrangements. Keyboards are subtly deployed throughout, playing counterpoint to the skilled jangling / comping of Meskers and fellow guitarist Herbie Shellenberger. While these eleven songs are bursting with ideas, they are also models of concision. Such is the focus and craft Brown Recluse brings to this remarkable set of tunes that only one is longer than three and a half minutes. Future pop classics like Impressions of a City Morning, Summer Showers and At Last are consummate examples of the songwriting art; full of great playing, poetic lyrics and melodic invention, they neatly sum up one of the strongest pop albums in years.

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