When Warp records released Gravenhurst's Flashlight Seasons earlier this year, the release was unfairly raked beneath 2004's already unwieldy pile of avant-folk artifacts, despite the fact that the lineage of Nick Talbot's atmospheric songcraft could more accurately be traced back through bands like The Smiths or Slint than to established folk sources. So now, months later, Talbot and his Gravenhurst mates return with Black Holes in the Sand, an ambitious EP on which they plunge headlong into more traditional folk themes and styles, almost as if to say "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
Containing six songs and running just over 30 minutes ling, Black Holes in the Sand is just a whisker shy of what was once known as an album. While previous Gravenhurst records have essentially been solo affairs, here Talbot is joined throughout by drummer Dave Collingwood and instrumentalist Paul Nash. Their collective sound remains spare, however, and it's still unmistakably Talbot's show, and on these songs his talents are given ample opportunity to flourish in the limelight.
The track which best typifies Gravenhurst's increased emphasis on tradition is "Flowers in Her Hair". Over exquisite Bert Jansch-like fingerpicking, Talbot tells the haunting tale of a young woman, burned by her townspeople as a witch, whose ghost returns to seek a little good old-fashioned payback. "Everyone you know/ Will be crawling through the snow/ At the four furthest corners of town/ Where they buried my bones," he sings as just the sparest hints of feedback provide the appropriate degree of wintry wind. It's a spellbinding performance, and a song that harkens back powerfully to the olde English ballads collected by Francis James Child.
Elsewhere, on songs like the title track or "Winter Moon", Talbot holds forth on our modern disconnect with the natural world-singing of mountains, trees, and frozen fields while "In our rooms beside the fire/ We drink unaware of all nature's forces in our lives." On these tracks he permits the occasional instrumental indulgence-- like a warm patch of droning organ or crisp electric guitar jangle-- to intrude upon his otherwise pristine vocals and acoustic guitar. (His pearly voice is in such mint condition here that its lack of burrs or scratches almost becomes a distraction on some of the EP's more emotive numbers.)
About the only track that doesn't work is the recasting of Husker Du's "Diane" as a gentle acoustic murder ballad. Though this cover may sound like a slam-dunk on paper, it falls irretrievably flat in practice, as Grant Hart's blunt lyrics ("We could cruise down Robert Street all night long/ I think I'll just rape you and kill you instead") sound hopelessly unpoetic when shorn of the rabid electricity which buried them on Metal Circus.
Closing the record is the pleasant but uneventful instrumental "Flashlight Seasons", on which guitar feedback and organ blend to end matters with a polite nod towards Talbot's old Bristol faves Flying Saucer Attack. It's an unexpectedly demure finale, and one that feels quite anti-climatic after Blacks Holes in the Sand has hit such charged heights of intensity. And when finished, it can't help but leave you wondering whether or not we've yet been allowed the best vantage point to witness the varied aspects of Gravenhurst's still-splintered personality.
