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Reviews

Jolie Holland, ‘Pint of Blood’ (Anti-)

Part marble-mouth, part singing saw, Jolie Holland is such a casually sexy singer that she could lazily evoke a freak-folk Elvis by emphasizing just a bit more swagger. But the frightened pop jangle of “Mexico City,” the lead track off 2008’s The Living and the Dead, was a serious step forward in songwriting; and Pint of Blood, with returning multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily, sneaks more hooks into her atmospheric smear. “All Those Girls” is slow-burn country grunge, “Wreckage” whispers Orbison, and “Little Birds” recasts a tune from her old band the Be Good Tanyas as an Afro-rumba for a nighttime forest.