Album Review: Daughn Gibson - Me Moan

Daughn Gibson rent 21^st century noir pop asunder with his American Gothic take on his great 2012 debut, All Hell. The Pennsylvanian is back armed with his trusty baritone for Me Moan, and somehow got a whole lot stranger. The truck-driving myth lingers, yet the grittiness that accompanied Gibson's sample-laden beginnings have been buffed right out; Me Moan is all lacquered surfaces, sumptuous sonics and red velvet at every corner, licking at the voluptuous shadows.

For shadows still exist – The Sound Of Law shuffles along the blacktop at the witching hour, dispensing rough justice as he blows that fucker off to hell, while the retro-futuristic saunter of You Don't Fade offers emotional heft even as it lurks, a neon version of Twin Peaks-lite ardour. Yet the issue with such ambitions and Gibson's voice is that there's often unnecessary friction. The aforementioned You Don't Fade occasionally ventures into VAST territory with its overt, mawkish samples intermingling with verbose lyricism; All My Days Off a sun-warped outcast from Beck's Sea Change. Yet there are times where this unusual cocktail sparks into life and burns the soul – Franco haunts, even as Gibson deliberately rolls his vowels to distorted levels, an obvious distraction that sweeps a simple heartbreak into more surreal realms. Still, the strongest songs here are The Sound Of Law and Kissin' On The Blacktop, all menace and vigour, with Gibson clear about the specifics – muddying the waters of dark country is his bread and butter.

Me Moan stands as a strange document of Daughn Gibson's unlikely ascendency to pop icon. Let's hope he goes back to his roots a little more – all hell may indeed break loose