Willis Earl Beal excellent 2012 record Acousmatic Sorcery was an effortless mishmash of lo-fi bedroom pop, winsome folk, and visceral blues. "Everything unwinds." the first cut from sophomore release Nobody Knows. floated light as a feather into the folkie camp. Backed by an interloping synth, Beal was delicately strumming a guitar with "rust in my soul," while trying to define the mystery of the lover at the center of the unwinding spiral that has become his life.
Any tenderness found in the song is throttled by follow-up "Too Dry to Cry" a boot-stomping, faux delta-blues number that could've been pinned in 2013 or 1927. The opening guitar figure is dripping sweat from the sweltering Mississippi sun while Beal begs the Lord to not be left "hanging like a spider with no fly." The song borders on the spiritual, but is kept out of the pearly gates by Beal's wandering eye and his "pitchfork prong." Like much of Beal's scant discography, it's a contradictory affair. His mind is on heaven, but his body's still stuck on Earth.
Nobody knows. is scheduled for release September 10 via the XL label. Here's the tracklist:
1. Wavering Lines
2. Coming Through ft. Chan Marshall
3. Everything unwinds.
4. Burning Bridges
5. Disintegrating
6. Too Dry To Cry
7. What's The Deal?
8. Ain't Got No Love
9. White Noise
10. Hole in the Roof
11. Blue Escape
12. Nobody knows.
13. The Flow
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