Daughn Gibson – “The Sound of Law”
In Endless Playlist, Treble’s staff helps you stock your own playlists by highlighting the best new tracks to come across our desks, laptops and ipods each week.
On Daughn Gibson’s debut album, All Hell, the baritone-voiced Pennsylvania singer-songwriter crafted a diverse range of haunting country noir via sampled sounds. But with his Sub Pop debut, Me Moan, Gibson is inviting in an even broader array of sounds, with a greater emphasis on live instrumentation and rich, lush arrangements. On “The Sound of Law,” the first track to be released from the album, it shows.
There’s still a crackly, looped quality to the tune, suggesting that Gibson is still building from a similar template, but the sound this time around is even bigger and more ominous. Drums sputter and skip. Pianos crash and clang. And backing vocals provide a ghostly counterpoint to Gibson’s own deep-voiced croon. It’s an overwhelmingly arranged three minutes of darkly opulent pop music, fulfilling the promise set forth on his debut with a fearless heroism. And yet there’s still an undeniably dark undercurrent to it all, which goes to show that an outlaw in fancy clothes is still an outlaw.
[found on Me Moan, Sub Pop; out July 9]
