The Last Town Chorus

{mosimage}THE LAST TOWN CHORUS | Wire Waltz | HackTone Records

The Last Town Chorus is the progeny of Brooklyn-based Megan Hickey — an evocative blend of sweet and slightly narcotic vocals offset by the melancholy strains of her lap-steel guitar. Hickey delivers Americana-laced tristesse from a place so authentic that even the harshest self-confessed cynics will have a hard time resisting. The album reframes some universal themes — love, loss, longing — in a context of blurred moral and social boundaries. There’s a farewell letter that invites speculation over the particulars of the “strange crime” that landed the eponymous “Caroline” behind bars. There’s also teenage isolation polished into self-acceptance in the bittersweet reminiscence of “Huntsville, 1989.” See also: How hurt can make you crazy with the obsessive pain of the (newly?) jilted in “It’s Not Over.” Like re-entering the real world from a subtitled art-house film on a Sunday afternoon, emerging from this album takes a lingering little while.