THE ACORN - No Ghost

A local paper's review of this album made a point of focusing on No Ghost's apparently "awkward-ninth-grade-poetry moments." As an assessment of this record, it's a rather pithy, bitchy critique, but it does clumsily highlight a shadow that hangs over these songs. After a predecessor that contained such a well-conceived and passionately realized narrative (Glory Hope Mountain's tribute to leader Rolf Klausener's immigrant mother), this group had a hell of a task outdoing themselves on the follow-up—especially with regards to the lyrics.

The band answers this challenge with a simple but effective shift of focus. No Ghost is as obsessed with sonic details as GHM was with maintaining a consistent narrative. The album takes the group's specialty—generously layered indie-folk—and punctuates it with crackling bits of distortion and noise.

Not that this is the group's foray into garage or trendy digi-rock, though—this is still The Acorn, and the setting remains ordered to exacting standards. No fidgety shred of feedback is an accidental occurrence—it's all meant to be there, and is never done in excess. But by giving themselves a broader palette from which to draw, The Acorn have avoided what would've been a major tactical error—following up a serious LP with one even more serious.

Instead, this record is a succinct beauty, distinctly bearing new influences courtesy of exceptional English tourmates, Elbow (as well as several melodic touches that suggest magnificent Chicago vets Califone). With No Ghost, these guys have loosened their collective collar a touch and are all the better for it.