Dan Michaelson & The Coastguards - Blindspot - 1CD

Mojo Review
Dan Michaelson And The Coastguards
Blindspot 
★★★★☆

The state51 Conspiracy (CD/DL/LP)


Fourth solo album by the bard of British sadcore

For 2011's Sudden Fiction, Michaelson relocated to the high West Texan desert to squeeze more end-of-the-line pathos from his croaking apparatus and his Leonard Cohenesque towers of song. Here he's back home - but whatever the postcode, it's still heartbreak hotel.


It's hard to imagine The Coastguards as a bona fide backing band, such is their leader's bare-boned palette, but the introduction of burnished brass - most gloriously on You Leave Me In Ruins - to his favoured pedal steel and piano warms things up further, taking Blind Spot away from Bill Callahan comparisons toward Lambchop or Sophia.


In this atmosphere of fading light, images jut out: Every Fold And Crease dwells on ageing, while Sheets - which fold and crease like skin - are all that remains in an empty bed. By rigidly sticking to one tempo and timbre, Blind Spot is less a series of highs and lows than another eviscerating X-ray of loneliness. - Martin Aston