I review Elvis Perkins’ new album. You don’t need to read my review, but you do need to listen to the album.
Many songwriters put on affectations of suffering. The self-pitying artist is a familiar cliche. Perkins’ own personal history gives perhaps more justification for this than the typical post-bourgeois indie artist can claim. He had the ethos to pull off tragedy, and he did so to much acclaim in Ash Wednesday. And this is exactly why the progression from Ash Wednesday to this new album is (wonderfully) surprising.