Four-CD box set of bolshy Ozpunks' three late-'70s albums and unreleased Live In London set from late '77, plus numerous outtakes, B-sides and EP tracks
Like Damien Jurado or David Ackles, Toronto's Rutledge is a master of gothic understatement. This wintry debut—shrouded in slow-tempo melancholy—is slyly addictive. Against spare backdrops of folk-country guitars, mandolin, piano and the odd banjo, Rutledge sounds weathered beyond his twentysomething years. An array of talent is on hand, not least of which is the reclusive Mary Margaret O'Hara (woefully underused on just one track, "A Letter To Heather"). Otherwise, Rutledge judges the balance perfectly.
Monochrome minimalists go Technicolor, with startling results Anyone familiar with 2002's Everybody Makes Mistakes could be forgiven for thinking they'd stumbled on the wrong band here. If that album was austere—a kind of aural porcelain—then Shearwater's third is a riot of movement and colour. They remain, in parts, as sombre-still as American Music Club, but now add more than a dash of Spirit Of Eden-Talk Talk and a whole heap of '70s FM pop. Soft-rock chamber music, if you will.
