There's little doubt that the emotional turbulence of youth serves as the artist's first muse. As we grow older that muse takes on more and more baggage, rendering its initial miserable/joyous purity lost amongst the responsibilities of adulthood. Multi-instrumentalist/singer/songwriter Patrick Wolf harnessed that angst on 2003's moody and apocalyptic Lycanthropy, and has refined it without losing any of its edge on his latest: the elegant, volatile and still kind of apocalyptic Wind in the Wires. Wolf's voice has matured -- he's still only 21 -- into a lonely and powerful tool of judgment. He pines like Ian McCulloch -- there's a definite Echo & the Bunnyman tone to the whole affair -- and takes the occasional left turn into Jeff Buckley-falsetto territory, always in the service of the song -- the stark "Railway House" blends the two effortlessly. Lyrically, Wolf may revel in the Gothic imagery of artists like Nick Cave and Tom Waits -- "The circus girl fell off her horse and now she's paralyzed/the hitchhiker was bound and gagged, raped on the roadside" -- but there's a young man's honest pain behind all of the flowery English vernacular. Like the Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon, he both loathes and lusts for the U.K. Whether he's walking alone along its windswept moors ("Ghost Song") or preparing for its annihilation -- the brutal "Tristan" -- he's armed to the teeth with an arsenal of violins, pump organs and his trusty laptop to tell its all too familiar story, that alienation is universal and art is its only trusted interpreter.
Okay, so I promised myself after the _Lycanthropy_ disaster that I was going to give ??Wind In The Wires?? a shot and see if I could learn to hang with Patrick Wolf.And the answer is a resounding _yes_.This album has none of the annoyances I recounted in my _Lycanthropy_ review. I don't find it contrived. I don't find it deliberate. It feels relaxed and wild and sincerely eccentric. I'm ple...
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In my mind, every song has images. It just so happens that the songs I like the most, are the ones I get the most vivid images for.Patrick Wolf's songs are like poems dipped in melody and lyricism. Rebecca Dautremer's {a French book illustrator, writer and comic designer} images balance between reality & fairy tales in a wonderful way. I'd love to see the two artists paired professionally. I'd...
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Okay, so I promised myself after the _Lycanthropy_ disaster that I was going to give ??Wind In The Wires?? a shot and see if I could learn to hang with Patrick Wolf.And the answer is a resounding _yes_.This album has none of the annoyances I recounted in my _Lycanthropy_ review. I don't find it contrived. I don't find it deliberate. It feels relaxed and wild and sincerely eccentric. I'm ple...
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Thanks, everyone, for the guitar tips.You know, I think I just needed to break the strings in a little bit. They sound okay now.I definitely needed to stretch out and dirty them a bit. In separate news, I went to the Virgin Mobile Fest yesterday. You can say whatever you want about the Red Hot Chili Pppers being old, over with, whatever,but there is no denying that Flea is one of the best (or THE
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i am fuckedand i am fucking toomy name is tristanand i am alive.
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| Title | Lyrics | Buy |
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| 1 The Libertine |
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| 2 Teignmouth |
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| 3 The Shadowsea |
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| 4 Wind in the Wires |
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| 5 The Railway House |
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| 6 The Gypsy King |
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| 7 Apparition |
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| 8 Ghost Song |
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| 9 This Weather |
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| 10 Jacob's Ladder |
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| 11 Tristan |
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| 12 Eulogy |
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| 13 Lands End |
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 "Wind in the Wires")
