Left By Soft

While David Kilgour’s seminal band the Clean continue their foray into more lysergic-pop sounds, the singer/guitarist’s seventh “solo” outing with his longtime band the Heavy Eights is more streamlined than meandering DayGlo. Opener “Left By Soft” teases the listener into thinking a churning, eight-minute, Velvets-inspired stretch might be ahead, but Kilgour keeps it tight and tidy with three and a half minutes of hypnotic, swirling instrumental pop. With guitars as aggressive as Neil Young’s or Thurston Moore’s (check the Sonic Youth levels of red on “Way Down Here,” the Crazy Horse melody of “Diamond Mine”), Kilgour is equally at home strumming crisp, folk-pop rhythms (“Steel Arrow,” “I’ll Climb Back Up That Hill”) or turning out airy, melancholy pop (“Could Be On My Way,” “A Break In the Weather.”) Left By Soft is one of Kilgour and the Heavy Eights' strongest outings yet, which is astonishing after 20 years together. Newbies stumbling here by way of bands like the Fresh & Onlys or the Smith Westerns should be delighted to discover one of the godfathers of post-punk jangle-folk.