Boister
Album: Your Wound Is Your Crown
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: http://boister1.bandcamp.com/

Boister is a, eight-piece Baltimore band with an adventuresome lineup that takes in piano, accordion, sax, trombone, organ, guitars, bass and two percussionists, and yet these sounds are used at times quite sparingly. The group sound isn't easy to define, often veering closer to jazz and cabaret than Americana or rock but also bringing in an element I hear as Canterbury prog (Soft Machine).

The other main reference point of note is the darkly relaxed tone and charmingly sultry Lotte Lenya/Kurt Weill-esque vocal style of the band's songwriter Anne Watts. This album's finest moments come with her upliftingly poetic lyrics set against a sparse and tellingly detailed backdrop at a languid but animated tempo (the cautiously extended Yellow Sands, whose lyrics turn out to have been adapted from lines in Shakespeare's The Tempest, is a good example). The thrusting build of Sycamore, the edgy indie-funk of Skate and the jerky gestures of Swan Dive also provide suitably cathartic experiences. Sure, there are times too when Anne seems to be unconsciously striving to attain the cool composure of Margo Timmins but not quite having the rich depth of vocal timbre to quite achieve that.

In contrast, the album seems to flag on the instrumental cuts (carefree circus-romp Martillo and directionless 14, for instance), when Anne leaves the stage to the musicians and a mildly rambling sense of incoherence sets in. The group sound and identity is not altogether lost, it's just that it feels less creatively channelled at those times.

I found it hard to find out anything much about Boister's past, other than that Your Wound Is Your Crown is album number seven in a career spanning more than a decade - so it's something of a surprise to be encountering so original a band for the first time. Such is life, I guess.

David Kidman