Withered Hand – New Gods (2014) FLAC

Edinburgh’s Dan Willson has been recording and performing as Withered Hand for more than five years now, but his second album New Gods looks set to be something of a belated breakthrough.
Willson’s music has been rather too easily categorised as winsome indie-pop, and his imposing but faltering voice, combined with strummed acoustic guitars and the occasional slice of Byrdsian twang certainly place him in a certain lineage. New Gods is produced by Tony Doogan, the Scottish producer perhaps most well known for his work with Belle and Sebastian and The Delgados. The music here also takes an occasional left-turn into country pastiche that recalls the dry-witted brilliance of the much-missed Broken Family Band.