Even without exaggerating, the Tindersticks are an extraordinary band. Unlike most anything in the current musical landscape, their songs emerge from arrangements of strings, horns, xylaphones, and other fairly unusual instruments for a pop or rock recording. And yet the record remains sparse and brooding rather than over-blown and tacky. The result is experimental in the strict meaning of the word; their sound, however, has little to do with bands normally tagged "experimental."
On their second album Tindersticks continue to amble their dusky path through an arid countryside that bares similarities to regions plowed by Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Red Hill Painters, American Music Club, Souled American, or PJ Harvey.
The deep, ragged voice that moderates Tindersticks has a forlorn expressiveness that inspires a loyal following, though it is not grating enough to animate the complementary hatred that Tom Waits' voice does.
The opening track, "El Diablo En El Ojo," is a harbinger of the album to come: a slow bass, whispy organ, and vocals are eventually joined by a spooky string ensemble and climax in a dissonant frenzy. Other tracks utilize different arrangements to the same affecting end. "Snowy in F# Minor," for example, is slightly faster, adds piano, and is urged on by some brass and a wooden flute.
Tindersticks integrate all the diverse instrumentation into an earthy, unassuming album with none of the pretense or grandiosity that might come to mind when strings, horns and rock are combined. Their writing process must approach actual composition; rather than ordinary rock ballads with expensive decorations sprinkled on, the songs seem to have been envisioned as multi-instrumental from the start.
This adventurous approach to writing makes Tindersticks very difficult to describe without scaring people off: very few bands will use just a few odd instruments to build a song if they are going to go to the trouble of calling in a string ensemble or a brass section or whatnot. The lack of overkill, the sparse, open feel, is a saving grace. But so few bands manage this restraint that writing about a band that uses strings automatically induces skepticism as people recall hulking monstrosities like Guns N Roses' "November Rain" or Extreme's outings with full orchestra.
Atmospherically, the Tindersticks second lp is a latenight masterpiece, an addition to the Mazzy Star/Drugstore (Drugstore's Isobel Monteiro appears on Tindersticks) section of your collection. An album to listen to alone, a musical comfy chair into which to collapse at the end of the week.
