Crooked Fingers - Breaks In The Armor

While Archers Of Loaf are back in fits and starts, the primary focal point for all things Eric Bachmann since the new millennium has been Crooked Fingers. While the spartan beauty of the tracks has always remained consistent, the instrumentation and arrangement have always been in flux. Recent times have found Bachmann working with a female foil. Liz Durrett has filled that role in recent years and reprises it here, adding polish and shine to darkly inviting tracks like Black Candles and Your Apocalypse. There is bad dark and good dark, and I'd put Crooked Fingers in the latter camp. Hurt and loss are the bedrock of Breaks In The Armor but the womblike warmth of the music leaves things in much more of of a hopeful place, more 2am sober contemplative than 4am drunken self-flagellation.

Get Breaks In The Armor here from the good folk of Merge Records. Come for the studio version and maybe double down and get yourself the whole enchilada in acoustic demo form, too. Crooked Fingers info portal is here.

R