Dylan Gibbs

4.5 
 
Canadian quartet Nathan’s newest CD is a haunting and beautiful collection of songs with often surrealistic, sometimes psychedelic lyrics. Like the stream of consciousness “Gasoline” -  “Hands glued to the steering wheel/smack between a ledge straight down and a wall of spruce as thick as thieves/And as sure as a sharp corner comes a jack-knife kind of creepiness, sweeps up and over me/Oh gasoline don’t leak out on me…” to smart, quirky observations like “Big Galoot’s” “Don’t go far for very long, ya big galoot/the air is thick with a terrible want, a glossy lip licked with a slippery guarantee.”
 
Songwriters and vocalists Keri McTighe and Shelley Marshall sound like two Dolly Partons with a little Fleming McWilliams and k.d. lang thrown in for good measure. Multi-instrumentalists Devin Latimer and Daniel Roy help them create a vibe that goes beyond sounding quite like anything else. And the nearest category to file Nathan under would be alt-country, but that’s a term for a genre that for me has always fallen depressingly short. So instead of classifying Jimson Weed as this or that, as it compares to those and the other, I’m thinking about things to do while the CD’s playing.
 
Like a bubble bath. One of those long, Merlot-soaked deals lit by a fire-code defying number of scented candles. Around the time the fourteenth track is over, all of the bubbles should be dead, your satisfaction complete. 
 
Or a road trip, one of the cliché “uses” for an album. The thing is, there is no better album to have in the car at five A.M. when fog is on the ground. I can’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure mountains would heighten the experience greatly.
                
If you’re about to commit suicide, Jimson Weed might change your mind. If you’re having sex, it may turn you into a super-duper lover of epic pleasure-giving capabilities. 
                
All weird accolades aside, Jimson Weed is one of the most expertly crafted albums to come this way in some time.

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