Siskiyou
Nervous (Constellation)

Nervous is a particularly poignant title for Siskiyou’s third album. Coming off the promotion cycle behind 2011’s Keep Away the Dead, bandleader Colin Huebert found himself faced with a debilitating inner-ear condition. Never mind the anxiety that comes with putting together a follow-up to an acclaimed LP: the songwriter was contemplating whether or not he could even keep his music career going. Nervous proves he can.

An isolated songwriting residency in the Yukon got Huebert rethinking his craft and working within a gentler dynamic than before. While, sadly, that means that Shaunn Watt’s drums don’t shatter and explode as catastrophically as they did on older offerings like “Twigs and Stones”, Nervous isn’t lacking in energy.

That said, Huebert’s fabulously cracked warble has been tamed to a timid but tuneful whisper this time around. This softness, however, is offset by touches like the unsettling children’s choir on opener “Deserter”, which shifts from a grim, gothic intro into an effortlessly buoyant pop-rock bounce. The song acts as a microcosm of sorts for the rest of the album, which shifts from the darkened haze of “Jesus in the 70’s” toward the silver-sunset slide guitar of “Wasted Genius” and the fun, falsetto group vocals of prairie trail shuffler “Oval Window”.

Huebert explores his anxieties in the album but working through those pressures has led to yet another confident collection from Siskiyou.