REVIEWSCastanets, ‘City of Refuge’

6

• SPIN Rating:6 of 10

• • Listen:

    Spotify

Label: Asthmatic Kitty

Getting past Raymond Raposa's world-weary façade -- big beard, deliberately grizzled voice, atmospheric instrumental interludes -- takes a willful suspension of disbelief not unlike what Will Oldham requires, but City of Refuge often rewards that patience. Raposa's fourth album under the name Castanets rarely makes a point, but meanders interestingly through a folky desert mist (the terrific "Glory B"), a frequently covered Baptist hymn (the merely nice "I'll Fly Away"), and bare-bones psychedelia (the kinda awful "Savage"). It's not the conceptual masterpiece he was clearly hoping for, but there are moments of transcendence just the same.

BUY: