Find Shelter

Album Review

As Noah Georgeson has been a key associate of both Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart, it's no surprise that his debut solo album is eccentric singer/songwriter folk-rock, with the accent on the folk rather than the rock. Fortunately, it's not explicitly reminiscent of either Newsom or Banhart, though there are similarities in the vibe. Instead, it's slightly wacked out Americana, rather in the mold of a 21st century Lee Hazlewood — a legendary cult figure to whom Georgeson's wavering cowboy-operatic vocal style will inevitably draw comparisons. Like Hazlewood, Georgeson decorates wistful, plaintive folky songs with grandiose instrumentation and an unsettlingly brooding mix of the down-home and the unfathomably strange. Georgeson's arrangements certainly have more of an alternative rock (and less of a standard pop) cast, however, whether it's tinkling percussion, shaky organ, or ghostly synthetic strains. Find Shelter is an interesting and idiosyncratic maiden effort, though it's unlikely to find as large an audience as Banhart and Newsom have, owing to both the narrowness of Georgeson's vocal range and the inscrutability of his songwriting.