Death Vessel

Like a week of watching sunrises and sunsets over a snowy landscape; that's how Joel Thibodeau's third album as Death Vessel feels. Appropriately, its realization came after an invite from Sigur Ros singer Jónsi to work in Iceland with producer Alex Somers and a backing band of predictably magical minstrels. The result dresses Thibodeau's fable-inflected folk songs and high registered vocal with the lovely and intricate instrumentation you'd expect busy cartoon birds to weave. Dawn salutations like "Triangulated Heart," full of sparkling glockenspiel and shuddering vocal harmonies, are balanced by dusky contemplations like opener "Ejecta," which features the churning percussion of what sounds like dozens of thumb pianos inside glass bottles. Island Intervals is barely over half an hour, but it's so rich with mood and detail that it stretches out and out and out to the horizon and beyond.