THE RAVEN (ACOUSTIC GOTH)

How could a set of Edgar Allan Poe poems be anything other than Goth, whether musically interpreted or not? Poe was an original in this realm, and it's a testament to his tortured visions that one of his last poems, "Eldorado", has been set to music multiple times before. That certainly doesn't make PAUL BRETT's effort extraneous, and his own interpretation is one of the highlights of "The Raven", another being the title cut.

The pure meter of so many of the man's poems lends itself so well to Brett's haunting acoustic reveries. "The Bride" and "The Conquering Worm" are both chilling delicacies in the hands of this man's weather worn voice and cavernous guitar. The album closes with one of only two short stories that are interpreted, "The Pit and the Pendulum", which first appeared on PAUL BRETT's SAGE "Emergence" comeback album from the mid 2010s, and from which one can assume this collection has germinated. This somewhat compensates for a notable sag in quality in the back 40, which sound like they were composed and performed on the fly. Brett's guitar technique is so exhilarating that it can carry almost any piece on its own, and the lyrics, even if not his, prevent the interpretations from sinking into the well of guitar picking instructional videos.

in a sense, this is a companion piece to Brett's "Songs from the Compleat Angler", which was as squinty-eyed sunshine to Poe's dark imaginings. One may be idealistically carefree and the other profoundly morose, but they are birds of a feather in Paul Brett's capable hands.