Around

Around
Label: Thrill Jockey
Rated: NONE
WorkNameSort: Around

Grateful as Television fans may be that Tom Verlaine has broken his recorded silence after a 14-year lull, they should be more thankful that the graying guitarist saw fit to release the instrumental Around in addition to the more trad-rock Songs and Other Things. Because Verlaine’s creaky vocals grate against his stoic, sublime fret game nowadays, the latter is home to his most sterling new sounds. Here, accompanied by bassist Patrick Derivaz and drummer Billy Ficca, Verlaine casually showcases a warm, lived-in guitar tone, alternating from stolid solitude (“Brief Description”‘s bowed, plucked and weeping phrasing) to springtime gaiety (the gauzy, luau-friendly “Meteor Beach”) to dust-stirring, half-cocked bugouts (“Curtains Open”).

This article appears in Apr 19-25, 2006.