Review/Wpg Sun/Feb 2011
Have you ever taken a long drive through the desert? I mean way out into the middle of nowhere. Out where there’s nothing to see but dust and rocks. Where the heat waves shimmering off the highway turn the horizon ahead into a vague, indistinct world. And where the night is an endless black pool illuminated only by the heavens above and the occasional semi dopplering straight at you like a freight train.Somewhere on that road, you’ll probably run into Brandy Zdan and Dave Quanbury. It seems to be where they spend their time these days, judging by their fourth full-length together. When the Wolves Go Blind runs quiet and slow and deep, gently hypnotizing and seducing you while tugging you down a sensual yet somehow suspicious shortcut that connects Tom Waits’ dusty junkhouse to Calexico’s dilapidated cantina.
Their voices gently swaying and drifting like tipsy lovers clinging tentatively to each other on the dance floor after a long night of heartache, Zdan and Quanbury share secrets and confess sins as a rickety house band lazily winds down while waiting for last call.
The guitars twang and clang with noirish menace. The accordions wheeze like a pack-a-day puffer. The saxophones honk and moan. And the murky brushed drums boom and rumble and roll around the edges like a storm that just won’t break. By the time it ends and you come out the other side, you’re not quite sure where you are, how you got there or what happened along the way. But you definitely want to turn around, crank the stereo and make a return trip. www.twilighthotel.ca
4 out of 5
