Roberts, Alasdair – “Amber Gatherers, The ” – [Drag City]

Life after death-ballads for Alasdair, and another champion stallion in
the Drag City stable. His aim may be another epoch, where the grass is
greener and, well, less concrete, populated with waxwing’s flitting about
and cow’s lowing. As Roberts intones “The curlew called my curfew bell”,
it’s not a (wi-fi) blackberry that tolls for he. Indeed every time I hear
him sing the word “”databases” in the otherwise supreme “Firewater” I feel
a weird sense of historical vertigo. The handclaps around the hearth on
that cut always bring me back. Other spirits are sampled well on “I Had a
Kiss of The King’s Hand”, an intoxicating seaside reverie, with something
like Neptune as a father figure; vinification without villification?
“The Cruel War” seems to pit father as foe to son, an uncivil war sung
in such a civil manner. Roberts does indeed have a mighty charm, his
voice cloaked in a warm robe of brogue is fantastic. Some folks have a
high tongue, and Roberts is a true troubadour. His minstrel band moves
with easy grace in and out of the shadows behind him, but ultimately
the timeless timbres in Roberts’ throat are what traps us in his lyrical
amber. That same amber is going to preserve this release well many years
down the cobbled road and out to the remote pastures of the future.

-Thurston Hunger