CD Reviews for 03/08/07 – Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter
Compact Capsules for 03/081/07
by Dan Ferguson
by Dan Ferguson
Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter
Like, Love, Lust and the Open Halls of the Soul
Barsuk Records
With Providence roots for a spell (she degreed in photography at RISD in the mid-1990s), dusky-voiced Jesse Sykes along with her band The Sweet Hereafter (which features ex-Whiskeytowner Phil Wandscher on guitars) on her third release Like, Love, Lust and the Open Halls of the Soul teams sonic maneuvers of the alt and folk rock variety with an evocative songwriting touch. A voice at times remindful of Chan Marshall, Sykes moves from the seductive simmer of tracks like “How Will We Know” and “Hard Not to Believe” to the gauzy psychedelics of “You Might Walk Away” featuring Wandscher’s (who doubles as Sykes’ husband, by the way) masterful strokes on guitar to the stunning “Station Grey” with it’s nods to Neil Young’s “Down By the River”. Like the pace of the album itself, Like, Love, Lust and the Open Halls of the Soul is a record that eases its teeth in ever so slowly, and keeps them there. (Barsuk Records, P.O. 22546, Seattle, WA 98122, or www.barsuk.com or www.jessesykes.com)
(Dan Ferguson is a free-lance music writer and host of The Boudin Barndance, broadcast Thursday nights from 6 – 9 pm on WRIU-FM 90.3. He lives in Peace Dale and can be reached at [email protected].)<...