Port St. Willow - Holiday - 2012

Nick Principe, the sole proprietor of Port St. Willow, has made a record of falsetto-heavy, atmospheric mope-rock played at lugubrious tempos. He insists that it should be be listened to as a whole. This is not the sort of thing that gets you noticed in 2012. But while his debut LP Holiday lacks cultural cachet or wow factor, there's another kind of immediacy here if you're wired a certain way. This kind of spare urban brooding is often the result of some serious heartbreak, making you want to really listen for the lyrics. Whether Principe has endured the kind of personal tragedy that sometimes makes its way into press kits is ultimately irrelevant. This record is intensely absorbing based solely on what it's willing to explicitly share. Pf