Richard Hawley

'Truelove's Gutter'

Devastating crooner's dark poesy shades into cliché.

Spin Rating6 of 10

With his gorgeously forlorn baritone, Richard Hawley could sing the German phonebook and make it sound like a sonnet. So it's a given that Gutter, like the ex-Pulp sideman's five previous shimmering, sepia-toned solo albums, has moments of heartbreaking beauty. Too bad those moments are outnumbered by a reliance on secondhand lyrical conceits (songbirds, shipwrecks) and drifting arrangements. A song as lugubrious as "Don't You Cry" doesn't need 11 minutes to work its tearful trick. Hawley's shattering Coles Corner (2005) offers a sharper take on bittersweet midnight music.

WATCH: Richard Hawley, "For Your Lover Give Some Time"

By David Marchese

1 Van Halen 'A Different Kind of Truth'
2 Lana Del Rey 'Born to Die'
3 Cloud Nothings 'Attack on Memory'
4 Kathleen Edwards 'Voyageur'
5 Himanshu 'Nehru Jackets'
6 The Mark Lanegan Band 'Blues Funeral'
7 Of Montreal 'Paralytic Stalks'
8 Leonard Cohen 'Old Ideas'
9 Imperial Teen 'Feel the Sound'
10 Skrillex 'Bangarang'

1 Cloud Nothings 'Attack on Memory'
2 Cloud Nothings 'Attack on Memory'
3 Kathleen Edwards 'Voyageur'
4 The Mark Lanegan Band 'Blues Funeral'
5 The Mark Lanegan Band 'Blues Funeral'
6 Leonard Cohen 'Old Ideas'
7 Escort 'Escort'
8 Escort 'Escort'
9 Escort 'Escort'
10 Himanshu 'Nehru Jackets'

Richard Hawley

'Truelove's Gutter'

The Mark Lanegan Band 'Blues Funeral'

Of Montreal 'Paralytic Stalks'

Van Halen 'A Different Kind of Truth'

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