Jake Burch
Bloodflower
Self-Released
Street: 02.10
Jake Burch = DM Stith + Tim Buckley + Inlets
 
Jake Burch sings like someone pleading for absolution, as if he’s somewhere in the astral plane, stuck between stations. Burch’s voice can move up the octave scale from a twangy, marble-mouthed drawl to an impressive Jeff Buckley howl in a strained falsetto that pushes the recording into the red in a few quick movements. Burch’s compositions effectively back these rusty-gold pipes when they are at the sparsest and creepiest—such as on the looped vibraphone bassline on the eponymous “Bloodflower.” They lose a bit of their luster, however, when corralled into straightforward folk rock tracks on “Pick Up.” Conventional composition is not something this multi-instrumentalist should need to rely on when he has such a disarming tool at his disposal. –Ryan Hall