By: Dennis Cook
This arrives just in time for the autumnal shift, the perfect companion for flat, gray skies and bare branches, a sympathetic timbre for nature's annual undressing. The Black Swans' second long-player, Change! (La Societe Expeditionnaire), has the narcoleptic drift of late period Chet Baker and the dark river flow of the best Cowboy Junkies. Singer-songwriter-guitarist Jerry DeCicca croons like a fresh gash to the heart, each syllable pushed forth with painful awareness and wrapped in the murky smokiness of the Tindersticks' Stuart Staples. The sometimes funereal mood is leavened by honestly hopeful lyrical pockets and the dexterous, melancholy string sweep of violinist Noel Sayre. "Coats" is simply a winter marvel, a literal and metaphorical bundle of warmth laying in wait for those who need the embrace. Anyone who digs the Willard Grant Conspiracy, Handsome Family or American Music Club is in for a treat from these poet-musicians who skip on life's jagged rocks so we too may make the same leaps.
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