Review: Black Books – Self-Titled

Black Books write big songs confined to small places. There is an epic and anthemic quality to Black Book’s cloistered little pop songs: a driving, pulsing urge to express something too huge for words written in broad brush strokes of soaring choruses and the diffused light of atmospheric passages oozing out of guitars and synths that blend ambient colorings into vital, crunchy power chords. All of this is centered around Ross Gilfillan’s pronounced twang buried under a thick cotton sheet of reverb. Still, these songs don’t get all Kings of Leon fake histrionics. They hum, buzz gently and ring out as tiny mantras for everyday living. Black Books is your first fist pump of the day on your morning commute. –Ryan Hall