What We Whisper

Jeffrey Luck Lucas' What We Whisper is not an utterly gloomy record, but it's certainly a downcast noirish one, down to the shadowy black-and-white photos and artwork of the sleeve. Lucas favors slow, moody atmospheric tunes somewhere between the swamp and the dark cabaret. His husky semi-whisper of a vocal, along with some twanging guitar and touches of cello, pedal steel, and haunting female background vocals add to the aura of arty despondency, as if one's stumbled into the after-hours of the soul. Certainly it's not light stuff, but it's fairly graceful, even if the consistently monochromatic bleakness of the arrangements aren't going to hold everyone's attention over the course of a full-length disc. Somewhat reminiscent of work by Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, and Tom Waits, but not explicitly derivative of any of them, it's music to gaze into the night to after the bar's shut down, wondering when redemption's going to emerge out of the ashes.