What a strange musical career Christopher Owens has had. As a member of Girls he made, alongside Chet “JR” White, the dazzling debut Album and its sprawling, lo-fi follow-up Father, Son, Holy Ghost. After quitting that group, Owens returned with the dreamy, flute-heavy solo album Lysandre, recorded in a solitary night and based largely around a single medieval motif. And now this: a gospel-tinged country record with an amusingly bizarre sleeve. Owens’s chosen backdrop seems oddly conservative – for all his band’s musicianship, the results can sound as if he’s simply singing over a keyboard’s country rock setting. And whereas he has claimed the whole point is to let his simple songs shine through, aside from notable exceptions (It Comes Back to You, complete with swirling organs), the melodies here don’t reflect his best work. Yet even when Owens isn’t operating at his peak, his work remains oddly intriguing – there’s a passion and honesty here, an uncompromising desire to follow his own vision.
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