Description
Nearly five years after their debut, The Delines return with elegant and bittersweet album The Imperial. The wait was prolonged due to an unfortunate incident in early 2016, when singer Amy Boone was hit by a car, both her legs broken. Though much of the album was apparently finished before the incident, some of her vocals were recorded following her recovery. She retains her sympathetic, vulnerable vocals throughout the album, as the band come through with 10 more songs about tragic, doomed characters, circumstances, and broken lives.
A focused and refined effort overall, Boone’s weary singing is compelling. The Imperial has a very sleek, wooded-over matte aesthetic that wouldn’t be out of place at the end of a bittersweet drama season finale. It is music that one might imagine being played in a small town Texan bar late at night – moody, atmospheric and haunting.
