Pale Air Singers

The opening chirp of crickets followed by the thud of boots on a piano body sets the dusky, brooding tone of this psych-folk collaboration between Calgary's the Cape May and Victoria's Run Chico Run. The convoluted account of a man convicted of killing his lover's husband, the album's loose arrangements, with wobbly trumpet laments and a chorus of different vocal styles, give the songs a chunky, organic feel. More of the Cape's haunting, minor-key unearthliness comes through on this joint venture than Run Chico Run's chaotic, synth-based pop but there is a touch of Chico's manic energy in the careening "Horse Trade," as well as in the giddy electronic twiddling of "Cubby, He Chopped Me Down." The band's riveting sound, with its murmurings of psychic unrest, mirrors the emotional turmoil in the lyrics. Tales of murder and adultery, bar fights and jailbreaks come to a beautiful, apocalyptic head with the climactic lyrics, "if the world explodes, it won't mean nothin' to me."