HERE’S an album that intrigues and irritates by turns, being the next step, or perhaps shuffle, onwards for Devendra Banhart’s electro-folk music.
Now sporting Frank Zappa-style facial distinguishing marks, Banhart has produced a work of sunshine and gentle breezes which, like a pleasant summer’s day, doesn’t go anywhere much, but is enjoyable enough, so long as whimsical musical ponderings don’t offend.
He still sings in that ethereal vibrato which can both please and annoy, depending on the listener’s mood or tolerance for this sort of borderline soppy thing.
This listener found the first three tracks – Can’t Help But Smiling, Angelika and Baby – to be totally enchanting, only for the attention to wander after that, although the ears perk up again for 16th & Valencia Roxy Music which, as its title suggests, is a homage to Roxy Music, and a rather fine one, too.
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