In a saloon in Big Tuna, Texas, sits a lone, sagging gentleman at 1:45 in the afternoon. His wife has stolen his car and wallet, and left him with a note saying goodbye and a $20 bill. He drinks another beer, stubs out a Marlboro, and the music playing inside his head must surely be Tindersticks. And the molasses-voice of his sorrow must surely be that of Stuart Staples. Is that the clock ticking or a dry hi-hat?

Curtains is posessed of that Tindersticks stamp that makes them a love/hate band, either you love their sorrow, their string arrangements, Staples' coal-deep mutter-moan, or, you simply detest them as Leonard Cohen sound-alikes. Curtains lumbers along, letting long crescendos build, beginning with restrained and minimal avant-jazz, building into dizzying and climactic cacophonies of strings. More experimental and intense than their previous release, Curtains comes in from the shadows and joins the conversation.

-James P. Wisdom