Sno Angel Like You
On'Sno Angel Like You, peripatetically wry songsmith Howe Gelb delves into another rack of dustblown songs that tug at the heart and head equally. For the first 23 seconds you might feel like you've heard this album before, as he languidly free rambles this choice lyric: "Make sure your baby's well tucked in a blanket in the basket of a backseat of a wagon that don't run on air." That's when the new wrinkle enters: the Voice of Praise Gospel Choir. They give Gelb's acoustic guitar-fronted musings a magic carpet--a riff machine that does call-and-response beautifully and then just sets up background vocal waves that give the semi-sparse'Sno Angelthe barometric luster of Nick Cave'sAbattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus.--Andrew Bartlett