Luke Roberts The Iron Gates at Throop and Newport Thrill Jockey

This is a wonderful album.  The opening song holds together through voice, sparely picked guitar, some quiet notes on the fiddle and fragile lyrics—“I don’t want you anymore / It’s been a long time / you don’t have to ask.” This fragility gives way to “Cartier Timepiece”, a gentle and sleepily jaunty song that if it were about an animal instead of a stoned road trip would fit perfectly on that album by the Seeger family (you know, the one with all the songs about animals).  Each song here sounds so damn delicate—like maybe you should just hold your breath while you’re listening—and even when there’s drumming and electric guitar it feels like listening to a snowflake.  The penultimate song, “Lost on Leaving”, comes closer than anything else here to something like happiness, and also features a piano and jew’s harp playing in unison to pretty wonderful effect.  There isn’t a song on this album that doesn’t linger in your ears and on your mind long after its gone, and despite the melancholy that suffuses the music and lyrics, the lingering impression is one of a muted kind of hope and joy: Luke Roberts expresses the struggles and pains of life with a dignity and restraint.  This album bears all the hallmarks of the best kind of art.