(Think/Fuse)

An uncertain searching of the spirit makes for an intriguing album

The Willard Grant Conspiracy aren’t so much a band as a floating musical collective brought together by Robert Fisher. And though familiar hands like Lambchop’s Dennis Cronin and The Walkabouts’ Chris Eckman turn up again, this seventh album has him in Glasgow collaborating with composer Malcolm Lindsay (with the odd notable guest like Jackie Leven). Still, with its mood and texture quite sombre but softened with sweetly mournful keyboards, strings and horns (not to mention bowed saw and church bells), it’s like a companion piece to the fifth album, 2003’s Regard The End. Again there are poignant reflections on grey days and fading lives, at times leading to untimely death and what may come after. And again Fisher sings in an almost matter-of-fact way, more regretful than brooding, tenderly but resolutely finding darker emotional buttons to push. From the hymnal Pugilist to a melancholic alt-folk feel in The Great Deceiver, as well as solemn covers like the American Music Club’s Miracle On 8th Street, it doesn’t sound too uplifting, but Fisher’s patent on turning sorrow into something soothing has been put to good use again here.

*** ½

BILL HOLDSWORTH

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