Much like new labelmate Fleet Foxes, Brooklyn's
Death Vessel pushes vocals and lyrics straight to the forefront: Nothing Is
Precious Enough For Us, the band's second album, is more about singing than anything
else. Frontman Joel Thibodeau, whose androgynous, pre-pubescent pipes nod to
the honeysuckle-and-critters whimsy of Joanna Newsom, trills about vowels,
goldenrod, and "remnant fauna" (it's helpful to presume the album's title, a
line from "Obadiah In Oblivion," is self-effacing), and his high, helium-heady
warbles are—much like Newsom's—deeply disconcerting on first spin.
But Death Vessel ultimately transcends rote freak-folk fancy; Thibodeau's
bandmates kick up a compelling fuss (playing wine glasses, banjo, pump organ,
mandolin, horns, shaker, railroad spikes, and "flukulele"), and Nothing Is
Precious Enough For Us is strange and engaging, equal parts dulcet and dark.