Future Suture

The opening moments of Ned Collette's second record are a lark, picking up from the exact musical and instrumental tone of his debut, but they do not stay that way. From there the album morphs into a number of new forms, into smoke-ring guitar solos and phasing electronic atmospherics. It retains all of the appeal of the debut but feels like a mutation of it more than a specific growth or refutation; the transition between the two has the feel of a roadtrip from the countryside to the city. The company remains constant, and good. It says something about the delicacy of that first release that the opening guitar lines of a track like "Show Your Hand" feel almost psychedelic, and the shift to a martial verse right afterward seems outright daring. But despite these instrumental differences, Collette's voice remains as lyrically and emotively appealing as ever, at once elliptic and conversational. By creating a work so artistically true to its predecessor but sonically expanded, Collette handily sidesteps any question of a sophomore slump.