2023-10-28 13:57:29
Angelo De Augustine must following the breathtaking A Beginner’s Mind probably more than ever (probably also: to a larger audience than ever) show what he can do on his own (and beyond the indispensable Sufjan Stevens comparisons). Toil and Trouble does a lot of things right in this respect.
Namely, by releasing the fourth solo album Asthmatic Kitty-Zöglings changes practically nothing to de Augustine’s previous direction and continues to confidently pursue the absolutely obvious comparisons with label bosses and cooperation partners in parallel.
Anyone who finds this still aesthetically too congruent with Stevens (but not of the same quality in terms of quality) will probably also be unable to ignore the fact that De Augustine’s breathy singing in his soft head voice shows hardly any variations beyond the more spherical, delicate melancholy, but rather its uniformity as ethereal uses stylistic devices; that the infinitely delicate singer-songwriter folk of Toil and Trouble in its endearingly gentle shyness with its tasteful, reserved arrangement, it primarily relies on an almost ambiently functioning beautiful sound, which is pleasantly dreamy to listen to and always leaves the consumption a little superficial without any real areas of friction, on a casually sprinkling level that is only partially captivating.
Everyone else immerses themselves in the vaguely psychedelic aura as if in a beguiling trance and encounters a few highlights that immediately stick with you, where a cursory listen, especially in the second half of the record, threatens to be monotonous with hardly any individual scenes standing out: Memory Palace picks up speed several times and finally rocks almost subduedly before the hook of I Don’t Want to Live, I Don’t Want to Die subversive majesty generated and Song of the Siren as a wonderfully plucked gem the inconspicuous, dozing magic of Toil and Trouble distilled in all its introverted inconspicuousness.
From the fact that The Ballad of Betty and Barney Hill How Iron & Wine-Balsam beguiles and the title song at the end of the record no longer makes you think of Sufjan Stevens, but rather of a fairy tale version of Elliott Smith, everyone should then draw their own conclusions. However, these selective highlights are certainly enough to round up between the points.
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