In another era, Jesse Sykes might have been burned as a witch. She’s strong-willed, idiosyncratic, and charismatic. One need look no further than the third full-length from this Seattle singer-songwriter and her bandmates to find ample proof of this. And while the materials she and her cohorts use aren’t as weird as eye of newt or powdered bone, neither are they conventional.
The Sweet Hereafter boasts former alumni of Whiskeytown (guitarist Phil Wandscher) and Neko Case & Her Boyfriends (bassist Bill Herzog), but pigeonholing their sound as alt-country is as wrong-headed and rash as…well, accusing an innocent woman of witchcraft. The disc opens with “Eisenhower Moon”, a spare number featuring mostly harmonica and acoustic guitar, with Sykes’ dry and crackling vocals backed by ghostly whispers. But don’t be fooled: These devils are shape-shifters. On “The Air Is Thin”, a simple vocal hook swells gradually until clusters of mariachi brass and a massed chorus have evoked the majestic spirit of the Ennio Morricone/Joan Baez anthem “Here’s To You”. “I Like The Sound” bubbles with the cheer of vintage sunshine pop, even as Sykes sings of a dead prisoner and wailing women, then gives way to sci-fi keyboard noodling and an insistent little piano riff.
Deceptions riddle this record. The jaunty “You Might Walk Away” behaves like a simple verse-chorus-verse pop ditty, yet its lyrical sketch of shadowy figures winding through broken glass toward a reservoir’s edge hints at something much more sinister than young love. And Wandscher’s solos add a magical element of their own: “Hard To Believe” tiptoes gingerly along with a six-syllable incantation and spidery melody, then suddenly cracks open a portal to another dimension as the guitarist gets his Crazy Horse on for a few bars, only to recede back into the shadows as quickly as he leapt forth.
