Devotionals

iTunes Review

Tyson Vogel is the drummer for San Francisco’s Two Gallants, and with his new project, Devotionals, he emerges as a surprisingly well-rounded and versatile artist. Devotionals offers up stunningly beautiful, stripped-down songs that are rooted in classical folk but colored with shyly symphonic — and faintly spiritual — overtones. This debut is mostly instrumental, and tracks like “Toil and Joy” and “Toil Pt. 2” showcase the exquisite and nimble finger picking skills of Vogel, while others, like “Morning Due,” add piano and violin or cello (strings by brothers Anton and Lewis Patzner of the Berkeley “string metal” band Judgement Day) to create a delicate, subdued musical tableaux. The gorgeous, gently billowing “Swell to The Invitations of The Sky” is introduced with a poem by the same name, and other songs — like “Chest Like Expansive Wings” and “Your Confused Beauty Upon My Cheek” — rise to a drama-infused mid-sections and codas. Quietly emotive and powerful in the same way as work by Sigur Rós, the simplicity of Devotionals is brilliantly deceptive.