Widowspeak (US) // Live at Plan B — Malmö

Widowspeak are one of the most prolific and hardworking bands going, bubbling just under the surface. Molly Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas are the core of the group and its songwriters, and they have honed their sound across sixteen years and an impressively consistent catalog. A lot has happened in that time: for them, for everyone. One of many bands to crop up in a fertile New York City music scene, they started out shuffling gear between venues now-since shuttered (Glasslands, Cake Shop, 285 Kent, Death By Audio to name a few) and their practice space in Monster Island Basement (now a Trader Joe's). The highs and lows of a long career mean chaotic stints as road dogs traipsing across North America, fly-in gigs to São Paulo or Guadalajara, wrapping seven-week European tours… And then down-time of years in between, considering the power of slowly building a body of work. Widowspeak is now a married couple, working day jobs in their own off-season. Robert is a carpenter, Molly a waitress.

Maybe time has given Widowspeak the ability to grow slowly; "Roses" is unpruned and more beautiful for it; left a little wild as it stretches its new growth in all directions. From the opening chords of "The Hook" you can hear how far they've come: the road is open, the sky clears. The band feels at ease, and taking their time. They recorded the album last January at the Old Carpet Factory on the Greek island Hydra: a studio in an old house tucked into the village's steep hills. It's quiet there in winter, when the tourists have all gone home. Longtime touring members Willy Muse, John Andrews, and Noah Bond serve here as the players. "Roses" was then taken home and slowly, lightly tinkered with, before being deftly mixed by Alex Farrar at Drop of Sun Studios, and mastered by Greg Obis at Chicago Mastering.

"Roses" is Widowspeak at its best, drawing on forever influences. There's dream and power pop, a little Stones, maybe some Petty, open and languid ballads with the twang of a Lynchian roadhouse band… Perhaps you hear REM, Yo La Tengo or Cat Power. A little Neil Young in Hamilton's references to working at the diner. The magic of the band is, still and always, the interplay between Molly and Robert in their two leading roles: her languid, textured voice and his visceral guitar playing. And as producer, Robert captures the ephemeral magic of a band finding a song in the studio: something that still bears traces of the directness of Molly's voice memos and the dense guitar tapestries of the demos. The rough-hewn marks of the tools are still evident, the noise kept in.