J. Tillman - 'Vacilando Territory Blues' (Bella Union) Released 19/01/09

'Barter Blues' is a stern stirring acoustic blues number full of flavour that evokes its' own myths of a murderer which Tillman stirs in the eye, singing "...I met you/ on the way to heaven...it's too late/ to act like you don't know me...", while 'Steel On Steel' is a country-tonkish slice that has Tillman drumming proper yet showing no signs of hardening the soft vocals and Americana feel. For that there's the magisterial 'New Imperial Grand Blues', a totally different brew to all else and the album's stand-out track. Rousing with a cacophony of horns and sax, 'New Imperial Grand Blues' works up a blues-rock stomper, singing - "...suffering doesn't know God's name...spend enough time with the living/ to know that living don't spend nothing on me...", a sumptuous track that wrestles like Iron and Wine getting dirty with some revisions of Iggy Pop & The Stooges.

On 'Vacilando Territory Blues', Josh Tillman has fashioned an exquisite and gentle album that arrests the busy, fritting mind and speaks to the quieter self. Guy Garvey's most likely itching to get him on his Radio 6 show. Deep yet far from gnarly browed, moody, broody or melancholic, VTB is a well balanced triumph of timing, arrangement and subtlety destined to become a musicians favourite of the year. Which in turn makes Fleet Foxes tickets all the more covetable.