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Album Details

• Artist: Arboretum
• Album: Rites Of Uncovering
• Label: ThrillJockey
• Year of Release: 2007
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2007-01-13

Majestic and brooding, with a creepy gothic sense, Arboretum spin small morality tales that suggest a more horrible end than explicitly stated. We are in the woods here, where knowledge is not necessarily a liberating thing. Many of the tunes here are epic in scope, especially “ Pale Rider Blues” and “ Sleep of Shiloam,” the latter, with “Muhammed’s Hex and Beauty” having a guitar-driven Richard Thompson feel. The band is basically current Baltimore resident Dave Heumann, who has some help here from Lungfish’s drummer Mitchell Feldstein and guitarist Walker David Teret. Heumann’s Warren Zevon-esque vocals help fuel the dreamlike epics, which are based on the writings of Paul Bowles. This is not a concept record, though; the connection with Bowles seems to be with his quest for insight in ambiguity and local fables. Yes it rocks, so you can ignore the previous sentence’s lit theory riff and enjoy this record on many levels. Wake up

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