Fulton Lights - "The Riddle in Me". A man has a sword in his chest. If he is lucky he can choose the right moment, with glinting in his eyes, to reach inside himself, to draw the blade, to cut through the thorns or chains or enemy. If he is unlucky, someone else will be the one with shining look: she will draw the sword from its scabbard beside his heart and she will cut him straight through.

This is a roundabout way of describing the sharp edge of this song. It is nicked & razor-sharp. Fulton Lights' Andrew Spencer Goldman continues to find new edges for his musical project, like he is leaning his body into a diamond belt, throwing his gardens in the thresher. Am I Right or Am I Right has grit, funk, megaphone reverb. "The Riddle In Me" is mostly guitars - guitars like shearing steel, guitars like stabs of strings, that ceaseless rocking riff, white lines under tire-treads. Maybe Tom Petty would write this song after spending all night with a Gang of Four record, his cheek pressed against cinderblock. Maybe he would write this song if he needed to draw the sword in his chest and get out.

[the album is finished, it just needs you - Soundcloud / / Facebook]

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Elsewhere: James Irwin, whose Western Transport I called "the best LP of any unsigned act in Montreal" has now made this beautiful record available through Bandcamp. If you like Bill Callahan, Cass McCombs, Laura Marling or Mount Eerie, you will like this. Go get the whole thing.

(painting by Jon McNaughton)