Damien Jurado – Brothers And Sisters Of The Eternal Son
Jurado's third collaboration with Richard Swift reaches new levels of ethereal brilliance
“Do not disturb me, let me be,” Damien Jurado sings in quiet resignation over a gently-plucked guitar on penultimate track Silver Joy. It’s these pit-stops of brilliant clarity scattered through the existential fugue which have defined his past three albums – records of transient beauty. With each Richard Swift-produced release, Jurado climbs further into the rabbit hole, becoming bolder with his musical choices, more attached to his themes and detached from his past.
Album opener Magic Number, with its smoky, jazz-club drum brushes and the playful bass and spaghetti-western gongs on Silver Donna continue the jammier motifs of Maraqopa, while the effortless, simple-to-the-core melodies on Silver Timothy and Metallic Loud remind us what a wonderful songwriter Jurado’s always been. These past three records have found him chasing himself around his own head, musically and thematically. And on Brothers and Sisters… the textured production, layers of echo and oases of ethereal beauty frame Jurado the dreamer, the paranoiac and the stray in glorious Technicolor. [Finbarr Bermingham]