Staff Reviews

Damien Jurado - Saint Bartlett

Review by Aaron Lavery

Saint Bartlett is by no means a failure – it just ends up being very different to what it initially promises to be. »

Buy now from:

'saint bartlett' opens up with a grandiosity yet unheard on a damien jurado album. it strips away the many layers of paint from the house down the street where we know jurado has occupied for the last decade. the new coat is exhilarating. it makes the whole neighbourhood shine. it's a modest grandiosity; still homegrown. the mellotron swells, heavenly handclaps ring in stereo and big drums create a sky for the songs to fly in. and the words. words spring forth from within the volcano of jurado, full of hope. there's so much hope, in fact, that album opener 'cloudy shoes' turns into a call-and-response with himself, as though it were a dialogue between two halves of himself. "i wish that i could float up from the ground / i will never know what that's like" heavy stuff. richard swift's spector-esque production is spot-on. he ferries jurado across the river, where the metamorphosis occurs. he then ferries him back, and it is through swift's lens that we see jurado not as a folk singer, but as a mystic - somewhere between van morrison, scott walker and wayne coyne. 'saint bartlett' was made entirely at swift's national freedom studio in oregon, in just under a week with only jurado and swift as the performers.
description from www.roughtrade.com