If the age of the crooner is over, someone clearly forgot to tell Richard Hawley. Embracing his inner Andy Williams and Scott Walker, Hawley's velvety voice is the most calming, relaxing and de-stressing thing currently on record. The guy clearly has a voice and over the course of six studio albums has perfected his croon and approach to writing incredibly beautiful songs that even your elderly parents will have a hard time not liking. His latest album, True Love's Gutter is no different and is easily the most lush and textural albums you are likely to hear.
True Love's Gutter features barely there production, hauntingly stunning instrumentation and THAT voice. It's just an incredibly delicate and radiant record that tugs at your heart from the very first note. It's charms lie in the way it slowly rolls out graceful songs that wash up gently one after another. It's a mesmerizing effort that beneath it's exquisite nature hides a dark depressing secret. This is an album that explores the idea of people or things that are broken in some way as well as the damaged times we live in. It's not the happiest subject matter around and of course you would never know that unless you read along because by about the third song in you're so hypnotized by the minimal and stark elegance of True Love's Gutter it doesn't matter.
From the rising of "As The Dawn Breaks," to the near Divine Comedy-like, "Remorse Code," True Love's Gutter has no faults. It's a purely palatial pop music that's designed to woo and woo it does in a most impressive way. True Love's Gutteris probably my favorite of the six Hawley albums and every time I listen I find it amazing that this guy was once in Pulp and the Longpigs. True Love's Gutter is gorgeous stuff that's the best blast from the past I've heard this year. Andy Williams would be proud!
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