The Paperboys – Dilapidated Beauty

On the first half of this impressive double-LP from Canada’s Paperboys, textured landscapes of violin, mandolin, fiddle, dulcimer and dobro support Landa’s voice throughout the collection of mellow-but-elegant Americana with a Celtic tint. Disc two switches things up quite a bit. “Perfect Stillness” is a funk junket, complete with layered horns and Rhodes keys. The upbeat tempo of the James Brown-influenced “Make Them Shine” and “Shining Through You” shuffles feet, while “Easy Chair” could easily find a place in the Van Morrison catalog.

While Landa may not possess the ferocious pipes needed to pull off the soul selections on the second disc, his voice is the perfect complement to the heartland melodica of the first. A good set overall that, with a few choice edits, might have been great.