Music Review: True Widow, AVVOLGERE

By Tim Murr

When I was two tracks into True Widow’s second album, AVVOLGERE, I said to myself, “Wow, this is everything I love about Sonic Youth’s Confusion Is Sex and Bad Moon Rising, but without all the arty filler.” This Texas trio just rolled into my life with the exact kind of album I’ve been wanting for a really long time.

The album is shoegaze via doom metal, with bluesy/Americana touchstones, but it doesn’t beat you over the head with any notion of belonging anywhere, except perhaps some dusty, half empty, backwoods, bar… where women dance slow and men drink alone. The pace across the ten tracks is like walking down a blazing hot Texas highway: menacing, but slow going, but not ballad-slow. There is an insistence to the rhythm, a meditative quality. And the overall sound is very cinematic. Pick any track and it would be the perfect opening to some fucked up, dark flick full of violence and negativity.

The vocal interplay between guitarist DH Phillips and bassist Nicole Estill is absolutely delicious. The way their voices and guitars float and buzz and ring and bang over Slim TX’s drums is something to behold. Actually, AVVOLGERE is a great companion to another album that came out earlier this year, the debut from Dark Palms, which is still one of my Top Threee albums of the year. True Widow is joining them at the top of my list.

I can’t express strongly enough how good AVVOLGERE is. It will appeal to a wide variety of music fans, from the aforementioned shoe-gazers and doom metalheads, to goth, drone, Americana, punk, and I’d venture to say even country fans, especially if you like groups like The Handsome Family.

AVVOLGERE was released on September 23 from Relapse Records. Be sure to check the band out on Facebook and Bandcamp.