Laura Veirs – Carbon Glacier

With her bright, open voice pitched between an apology and a complaint, Laura Veirs makes a far more skeptical tourist through the haunted wilderness than her semi-competitor Nina Nastasia. Even with the inquisitiveness of Eyvind Kang’s warbly viola, or the percussion that clunks like a box of bones shipping third-class, the primitivist arrangements only hint at mystery; and lacking the more conventional warmth of her last record, Glacier is a curious but chilly listen.