The Redeemer
Dean Blunt
- LP
- Label
- Hippos In Tanks, World Music (8)
Dean Blunt is heartbroken, possibly. The Redeemer is his break-up album, a relatively straightforward affair after numerous releases that seemed to reveal as little about him as possible-- or maybe they revealed everything. His prior work, both on his own and with sometime partner Inga Copeland, varied wildly in quality, finally reaching a dead end with last year's The Narcissist II, a half-assed tribute to half-assedness. Where do you go from there? For Blunt, the answer is to lose the dopey feel of his prior records, strip away the layers of fuzz, and etch out a set of short ballads that form something resembling a relationship crisis album. There are occasional diversions-- distraught voicemail messages, clocks chiming ominously-- but much of The Redeemer assimilates the feel of someone slumped over a bar, reading the last rites on a romance.