Record Review - 5 January 23 2002

The second outing from ghostly post-folk outfit Bevel is a work of startling tenderness and beauty. The record feels barely there. Thin lines of guitar sketched are against empty air, slim sluices of violin transport spectral melodies. Bevel recalls all that is best about well-tempered, restrained collectives like Lambchop. Songs like “Once A Pond” hover in dark open spaces, capturing a sort of spare Gothic beauty. Because of this, Where Leaves Block The Sun plays out like a string of epitaphs: small sad stories told with minimal ornamentation that convey a deep sense of tragic loss. The distant, plinking piano that opens “Theme for Harold” is soft as starlight, and the simple high guitar line that trickles down over “Siberian Sunrise” manages a sort of pixie skittishness and mystery. Where Leaves refuses to show off in order to capture attention. Which, in the end, is precisely why it does.??