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ON MY WAY TO ABSENCE
(Secretly Canadian)
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Seattle-based singer-songwriter Damien Jurado is an equal-opportunity depressive. Unlike the majority of the alt-folk types who make up his underground cohort, Jurado isn’t content to strum an acoustic guitar while killing us softly with songs about the women who’ve done him wrong. His albums have dabbled in sunny Laurel Canyon roots pop, ragged Neil Young grunge rock, and the sort of spectral folk songs you’d expect to find on an old unmarked cassette moldering away in a Nebraska thrift store. His melancholy isn’t limited to the romantic variety, either; Satan depresses him as much as an unfaithful lover, and he’s unlikely to pass through a Midwestern ghost town without penning a song in tribute to the souls who died there. "Lottery," which he sings with former label mate Rosie Thomas, is the highlight here, a gently finger-picked ballad about gravediggers and a crying widow in which Jurado flashes a sly sense of self-reflexive humor. "It [this song] is popular with the disco dancers," he and Thomas mumble heavy-heartedly. "They’ll play it on the radio all week long." (Damien Jurado headlines this Friday, April 22, upstairs at the Middle East, 472 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square; call 617-864-EAST.)
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