Widowspeak waste no time setting the scene and pulling the listener in on the album opener “While You Wait”. A mellotron and flute-filled few seconds of introduction precedes Thomas’ twangy string picking that shimmers into Hamilton’s gorgeous, Hope Sandoval-esque vocals. There are vibes of a warmer, more modernly lush ‘Astral Weeks’ in the feel of the music, and Hamilton’s hushed voice makes you want to listen as closely as possible as if she is revealing some sort of deep secret or hidden piece of wisdom. While the lyrics seem to be hinting at the nonstop, always grinding nature of modern life (“while you wait/ we’ll have it done today”) the music itself sounds more steeped in nature, like something that makes you want to close your eyes and imagine being out at night under a full sky.

“Everything is Simple”  has the feel of a country-western stomper, and sees Thomas showcase his guitar work by blowing things open with a crunchy, bluegrassy guitar riff that provides a great edge to the airy vocals of Hamilton, who shows her lyrical prowess for making simple turns of phrase (“everything is simple/ till it’s not”) sound mysterious and meaningful. “Salt”, yet another standout from the first half of the record, picks up the pace with galloping, dance-oriented drums punctuated by an Echo and The Bunnymen guitar bounce that, in keeping with Thomas’ guitar work throughout the record, does just enough to stand on its own while not entirely dominating the soundscape and leaving room for Hamilton’s vocals to float on air. “I’m happy for you/ because I said I’d be happy for you” sings Hamilton, perhaps a bit tongue in cheek. 

The second half of the record is just as fun and alluring as the first, with the album title inspired “The Jacket” opening with a metallic riff and rhythm that sounds like Chairs Missing era Wire, as gruff and cavalier chords and string bends give the song perhaps the truest outlaw country feel of any song on the album. A minimalist synth (which Widowspeak makes use of in subtle ways in many of the songs) carries the tune into euphoric oblivion in a way similar to something out of The Brian Jonestown Massacre catalog. “Unwind” is perhaps the most indie rock song on the album, with a 90s hip hop beat vibe that slides underneath a tumbling grand piano and Hamilton’s mesmerizing and hypnotic vocals. It’s got the feel of a smooth ballad, as Hamilton takes center stage and powers it through with compelling earnestness. 

On the tail end of the album, “The Drive” invokes images and feelings of being on the open road, and nails home that unique ability that Widowspeak have to consistently create imagery that takes the listener out of whatever situation they may be in and place them firmly in the universe of the song. Pop western guitars that sound like something off of Waxahatchee’s 2020 release Saint Cloud intertwine with Hamilton’s voice, which sounds a bit like Big Thief’s Adrienne Lenker on this particular track, creating momentum and feel that is uniquely Widowspeak’s. Thematically, Hamilton is perhaps again pointing out the grind mindset culture of modern American society, as she sings about not possessing the drive (as in the intention or dedication) to accomplish what you want to accomplish. Hamilton has a great ability to subtly jump from verse to chorus without needing to give the classic “look everyone, it’s the chorus now!” treatment that a lot of other artists need to do in order to get their point across. Her lyrical talent and warm yet edgy voice allow her to plant earworms into the listener at a moments notice and before you know it you’re singing along to a chorus that seems like it snuck up on you; “The Drive” sees Hamilton do this perfectly. “Forget It” is maybe the most overt love song on the record, and it juxtaposes the clear-eyed sadness and whimsically content nature of the narrator like any great love song does. It also presents the most compelling outright guitar solo of the record, as Thomas finally steps into the spotlight and delivers a memorable passage of guitar work that puts a bow on things. 

Widowspeak have done such a great job on The Jacket of letting everything fall into place and breathe. Robert Earl Thomas’s guitar work is never overbearing, but rather always seems to do just enough to stand out, an almost “less is more” strategy that works to a tee and suits Molly Hamilton’s voice perfectly. Hamilton’s performance throughout the record is really something; you get the sense that you’re dealing with a pure, uniquely talented lyricist and songwriter, which she has firmly established herself to be a decade and now 6 albums deep into Widowspeak. On The Jacket, they’ve made perhaps their best work yet.

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The music of Molly Hamilton, Robert Earl Thomas, and their small fraternity of collaborators has this fantastic ability to make its listener tip their head down and gaze into their shoes with earnest attention. As with other Widowspeak albums, melancholy and longing are the dominant motifs, and as a consequence a melancholic and forlorn body position is assumed for the first few tracks of this, their latest full studio album, Expect the Best. However, go a few tracks in and the album does a small juke move, pivoting to trick the listener into a little bit psychedelic playtime.

“Dog,” a song near the middle of this nine track, the thirty-six-minute album examines the life of a pet, with a loose parallel to the human condition, and a sort of jealousy towards the simple life of a creature who’s Zen comes from doing as it’s told. Though this song is a real bottom-lip jutter, it introduces the listener to a surrealism that gets pushed as the album progresses. The next song, “Warmer” fully embraces the trip to Weirdsville in a thrusting hippie-freakout anthem that effectively snips the weight on the listener’s nose, letting them drift up to the ceiling for a bit. Of course, like any high, a bum-out is inevitable, and the next song sees the return of Hamilton’s dreary but dominant vocal trail-offs, the musical equivalent of going limp in the slipstream of overwhelming emotion. And so the album hits emotional highs and lows. One track pushing the listener up, then next bringing them down.

Expect the Best stands out in the crowded trippy-sad-folksy-shoegazer-pop-rock genre in part because of Hamilton’s lyricism. The song “Good Sport” examines the life of a loner or outcast with the help of sports metaphors, something you don’t see much in the nebbish genre she works in. “Never been a good sport, you can’t ask me to play. Drop the ball in my own court, and just walk away.” Despite the bleak outlook represented by the lyrics, the subversive word-play elicits a kind of justification, as if to say that the narrator of the song can eschew the sporting lifestyle and its jargon because she has something of her own: wit.

There are a lot of intentional winks to the audience throughout the album, the song “Right On” starts with the line, “Easy won’t do it” and continues with chipper zingers like, “Thought about – cutting out… Not fighting the current.” These lyrics are juxtaposed against the chillest of phrases: “Right on,” and its repetition in a guitar-medley-enhanced chorus. What Hamilton seems to be saying to the audience when she does this is that she knows that the listener knows that the empty phrases and clichés of our popular lexicon fail to convey the complexity of human emotion when spoken out loud. So, she imbues a layer of irony over what she’s saying, which the audience is hip too on account of the downcast vocal inflection, among other clues.

As stated earlier, the album is short, barely over a half hour. This is probably a good thing; the songs are tight and don’t linger, which is a positive trait in music that leans towards depression. A few tracks are out now; the rest will arrive with the album on August twenty fifth.

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All Yours is, more so than any other Widowspeak release, underwritten with Americana vibes. Hamilton’s voice is soft, every sound comes out as an exhale into the universe, and at times it was hard to understand the words. Thomas’ guitar and harmonica solos, on the other hand, were an upbeat intermission to an otherwise low key performance. Track after track from “Cosmically Aligned” to “Coke Bottle Green,” the noisy Silver Dollar was beginning to feel like a saloon. If there was a bar brawl it would have been a well timed duel in the dust.

The slim crowd didn’t quite seem to be the usual Widowspeak crowd, which can probably be attributed to it being a holiday weekend. The chatter in the room was almost too upbeat for the dreamy shoegaze gently encompassing the venue, but that didn’t seem to bother the band. They were on a different plain cruising through a desert to the sounds of their guitars.

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Widowspeak is a Brooklyn-based band that consists of vocalist/guitarist Molly Hamilton and guitarist Robert Earl Thomas. Although the line-up has changed throughout the history of the band, Widowspeak has continued to define and expand their sound down to its purest and most essential form. In All Yours, Widowspeak returns to the influences that characterised their previous efforts, Almanac (2013), and The Swamps (2014), with an album that’s a whimsical touch on country.

Some of the most gripping songs call up and play up the country factor, not fighting, but going with harmonicas, transforming the melody such as in “Girls.” And like “Girls,” “All Yours” mimics this dreamy country formula for a familiar sound that takes hold of your emotions. If you listen to this when you are getting ready in the morning, you might find yourself putting on overalls and a pair of Hunters (or the other closest thing you might have to cowboy boots).

“My Baby’s Gonna Carry On” is a little funky number that turns into a psychedelic meditation. “Dead Love (So Still)” jams just as well with a full bass line. All Yours has its moments of energy in their slowcore collection of songs, but its easygoing nature turns positively lethargic in several tunes. “Cosmically Aligned” has a delightful aloha spirit to the guitar, but otherwise moves like molasses. “Coke Bottle Green” as well as “Narrows” is paced at a slower march. That country space in which Widowspeak created and recorded the songs seeps through these finished tracks.

Escaping to the Catskills/Hudson Valley region, Widowspeak did not look back to the city except in the lyrical matter to their songs. Many of their songs ruminate on the idea of moving on, but the luxury of space, and the economical guitar-playing are also noticeable in All Yours. This isn’t to say there weren’t pleasant surprises such as when Thomas takes over the microphone in “Borrowed World.” A first for Widowspeak to have him sing front and centre, and the results are enjoyable indie folk fodder. The beautiful effect of the piano towards the end of “Borrowed World” is especially lasting in its gentleness. Primarily, All Yours is an earthy and hypnotic record, like a piece of farmer’s grass to be chewed on.

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The release date is fitting, as there is a spooky quality to the six tracks, totalling about nineteen minutes of ghostly melancholia punctuated by quick-picking guitar rhythms and the snap of an old snare drum. Hamilton’s voice carries like a loud whisper, the kind that makes a person listen harder because they know something secret is being said.  The way her inflexion curves up at the end of each stanza then trails off gives the feeling of a person recalling a bittersweet memory, a major motif of the EP.

The height of sad nostalgia comes from the standout single “Calico”. Describing the erosion of a couple’s relationship and the home they’ve made, “Calico” is distinct in its swampiness –stuck, unmoving, decaying. This isn’t to say that The Swamps is a buzz-kill EP. The tone is one of rejoicing in the good times past while currently mired in depression -not unlike listening to somebody describing Silicon Valley in the nineties to somebody who graduated college in 2008.

Listened to as a single piece, The Swamps EP’s thematic arc falls while moving forward slowly into darkness. The first song, “Theme From The Swamps”, has no lyrics, but layers on instruments in a bobbing sort of way with a few “Ahhs” thrown in for mood. Next, “Smoke And Mirrors” begins rollicking, reminiscent of the theme from Friends, but darker. A few more lights go out for “Calico” and then “Brass Bed’s” hook, “Baby can we play dead”, trips even more circuits in the sinking bayou cabin, leaving just a candlelight for the droning “True Believer” track. The title song, “The Swamps”, swallows it all in the end, a natural conclusion from such a dreary climate.

Though not wildly different from Widowspeak’s previous albums, there is less folksiness and more contemplation in The Swamps. Good for listening to in the dark when you’re alone or in a new place –the conditions in which the EP was conceived while Widowspeak was on tour.

Available through the Captured Tracks label on their website next month.

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Some music has a way of moving you forward. Some has a way of slowly building a whole new environment around you with a single guitar stroke. Although there may be many different feelings and situations associated with Widowspeak, what feels most relevant is comparing it to sleeping under a tree.

Singer Molly Hamilton’s tender, whisper-like vocals touch down in the same way sun rays feel on closed eyelids on a warm day. When talking to Interview Magazine a while back, Hamilton said that she wanted to start “a creepy, Disney-soundtrack folk group,” yet what they ended up with seems to be the complete opposite of creepy.

Not once, not twice, but most definitely at least five times, random voices shouted out in between songs, “I love you Molly!” to which Hamilton shyly whispered “Thank you” into the mike. It also makes sense that Widowspeak would do a cover of Wicked Games, with their own music being close to the era, and the likes of Chris Isaak Hamilton and Thomas seemed to feel quite at home with the track.

To say that Widowspeak’s recent album, Almanac, was well received is an understatement. Praised by NPR, Pitchfork and even Vogue, it must makes Capture Tracks proud of their humble Brooklyn find. As one would expect with such ratings, the band did not disappoint live.

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