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Octoberman’s Marc Morrissette gets adventurous on his third outing, and the risks pay off. Instead of his usual stripped-down Dylanesque folk about travel adventures, he brings in a full band, dynamic arrangements and studio experimentation, turning the project into something closer to late-period Wilco.
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Most songs – Dancing With Yer Ghost, Scenesters, Temptation Is A Bloody Mess – get the full-band/studio treatment: melancholic vocal harmonies, stellar guitar riffage, strings and horns, ambient noise, Morrissette’s reedy croon communicating loss, loneliness and leaving. (He relocated from Vancouver to Toronto after the album’s completion.)
But it’s the sparse ukulele-and-piano simplicity – and Leah Abramson’s catchy backup vocals – of Thirty Reasons that makes it the standout track.
Top track: Thirty Reasons
Octoberman play the Dakota on October 8.
