The New Folk Implosion

From Dinosaur Jr, to Sebadoh's indie rock standard bearer, to his home taping solo project Sentridoh, to the Folk Implosion, who cant help but love, & be inspired by, Lou Barlow?

Now alongside new personnel Russell Polland (Sebadoh's stalwart drummer) & guitarist Imaad Wassif we have it all. Sebadoh might have been one of the defining bands of the indie-rock revolution, but it seems it was Lou Barlow's side-project, The Folk Implosion, that was really built to last. The New Folk Implosion is, despite its name, a fine example of what Barlow has always done best: an album of fraught, soulful rock music that vocalises the shyness and inadequacy of its maker into genuinely artful poetry.

Barlow's lo-fi edge mellowed into a loosely adventurous experimentalism long ago, and it's this guiding principle that sees ex-Sebadoh drummer Russell Pollard's rhythms augmented by fluid loops on the likes of Brand of Skin and Leaving It up to Me. There's nothing here as immediately hooky as Natural One, the group's unlikely hit that crashed the US charts after its inclusion on the soundtrack to Larry Clark's controversial teen movie Kids. But those still mourning the passing of Sebadoh ought to find what they're looking for in the windswept Releast.

And elsewhere, there are some quietly classic moments: Creature of Salt, where Barlow coos of "dissolving in front of your eyes" in a characteristic expression of self-disgust, or Pearl, an acoustic love song with a barbed tail.