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Rating:
Shame.
Yes, I feel a bit of it. Because "North Star Deserter" I had listened to it once before and then filed it away. Luckily, I revisited it and it was love at first sight. I'm ashamed, also because Vic has so much credibility to spend, he deserved an immediate and more attentive listening, continuous, without any hesitation. Because when he wants to convey something, the chances of hearing a great work are high. Because Vic, like few others in American songwriting, has that magical ability to narrate with three notes and a single instrument, 100 things and more, conveying that inner passion in a visceral and moving way.
The album is difficult to talk about; it's easy to risk being banal, superficial, wasting adjectives. Folk and much more. Reverberations of distorted electric guitars, harmonious small choirs, penetrating drum rolls, and the "sick" voice are the backdrop to the multitude of emotions dispensed with the help of other great artists, including Silver Mt. Zion, Bruce Cawdron (Godspeed! You Black Emperor), Guy Picciotto (Fugazi).
"North Star Deserter" is a heavy, powerful, almost mean recording, so physical that it scratches the skin, pervaded by deep melancholy and suffering. After all, who better than Vic, paralyzed since the age of 18 due to a car accident, ex-alcoholic, ex-drug addict, with various suicide attempts, can convey suffering? But even if what falls from the sky isn’t dirty rain, but is a dense liquid that clings and pervades everything like oil, Vic still has the courage to sing to us that everything is O.K. (You Are Never Alone).
"North Star Deserter", is part of those albums that arrive later, but when they do, they hit hard and in the judgment of the inadequate scribe, this is his masterpiece and, to date, the best album of 2007.
Regards, Addison.
Tracklist and Samples
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