In and Out of Youth and Lightness
finds Louisville's
Young Widows
stripping back their metal edge and incorporating some gloom and doom. Still menacing, even without all the screaming and bashing, the sparse, cavernous textures created by
My Morning Jacket
producer
Kevin Ratterman
combined with the songs' jagged dissonance make them severely tense.
"The Guitar,"
from 2008's
Old Wounds
, hinted at this slow and spacious direction, and much of the three-piece's 2011 album plays at a similarly steady pace, half-filled with music that culminates from goth, blues, and no wave, and half-filled with darkness.
Nick Cave
's influence is noticeable throughout, both in singer/guitarist
Evan Patterson
's sing-talk vocal style and in the playing by
Nick Thieneman
and
Jeremy McMonigle
. A crawling
Bonham
beat drives the album's middle, on
"Lean on the Ghost,"
"The Muted Man,"
"Right in the End,"
behind sparse blasts of distorted bass and wiry slices of guitar. In other places things become more rocky and primal, with the feedback engaged. But even when
' scorn escalates and the mood becomes more frenetic,
always feels detached. Maybe that's what makes it so unnerving, and so good. ~ Jason Lymangrover