Elvis Perkins In Dearland - 'Elvis Perkins In Dearland' (XL) Released 06/04/09

Following up to the critically acclaimed 'Ash Wednesday' of Elvis Perkins '07 debut, the eponymous 'Elvis Perkins In Dearland' sheds the sombre overcoat of it's predecessor and allows the mercurial spirit to fly. The son of arguably the most famous of silver-screen psycho's, Anthony Perkins, Elvis Perkins lost his Mother in the 9.11 attacks having already lost his Father to HIV, and there's dark melancholic threads to be found in his verse coupled with an oblique black humour in a check-mate of opposing forces. Perkins has broadened his set-up to include his touring band whose multi-instrumental members bring an urgency and a charge to the album - Perkins guitar and folksy harmonica carousing with standing bass, swirling gothic organ/harmonium and rag-time brass.

'Shampoo' and 'I'll Be Arriving' feature an Animals-like funereal organ/harmonium, the latter with "..today I die..." verse, strangled chords and dragging around the chains of hell as though losing a hand of cards to the devil. A rhythmic flourish informs 'Shampoo' with oscillator warbles and oh-so noirish lyrics, Perkins singing "...black is the colour of a strangled rainbow...black is the colour of my true love's arrow, exactly the colour of my blood...".

'Hours Last Stand' is a broody ballad cut with grandeur, Perkins sounding like Win Butler/Bryan Ferry delivering "...little suicide's, 'sall that's left of me..." to chamber strings - like a picnic for the damned, while on '1,2,3 Goodbye' Perkin's sings "...I love you more in death than I could in life..." with a matter of factness that casts allusions to his inner loss. Yet, 'Hey' is decidedly slick with a vintage rockabilly perkiness and chirpy harmonica, and the Costello-esque 'I Heard Your Voice In Dresden' finds the fire-bombed city that has  become a by-word for war-time atrocities contrasted with Perkins personal feelings of glory.

Sounding uncannily like Fionn Regan, 'Send My Fond Regards To Lonelyville' is one of the finest moments, the Dylan/Cash-like redemption song a melange of rhythm and folk as Perkin's sweet chords chime with rag New Orleans street jazz and beguiling verse - "...some with forked tongues, they love again to unlearn...", while the barnstorming 'Doomsday' blows raspberries to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse like Dylan at the Moulin Rouge, a jamboree of marching band brass and groovy standing bass making for much jubilation and mirth - "...till Doomsday, fiddle-eye-aye...", as a reference to the deposed president goes "...and though you voted for that awful man, I would never refuse your hand...".

Closing with the ballad 'How's Forever Been Baby', I can tell you, it's been so good that the album's on repeat for the upteenth time. 'Elvis Perkins In Dearland' is a paradoxical work, an interchange of shadow and light with a gothic, southern States illumination. Never straying into the singer-songwriter template, though technically that's what he does, 'Elvis Perkins In Dearland' fashions cabaret and vaudeville in equal measure to vintage southern folk/jazz. Perkins blood ain't black, it's charged with haemoglobin. Guinness, Sir?