Enough

I'll Come Running

All My Kisses

No Means Go

New Tricks

World Disappears

In a sea of tired cliches concerning who is more lo-fi, who cares more about the cut of their jeans or the height of their hair, who expends the most effort to appear the most casual, My Blue Valentine thrives on the twin forces of contradiction and hook. For the former, imagine, if you can, Billie Holiday at the honkey-tonk, Patsy Cline in a smoke-filled, Southern r&b juke joint, Amy Winehouse, finished with rehab, dreaming of one last drink, fronting X in Exene's absence. For the latter, My Blue Valentine worships at the temple of late-50's bluesmen and early-60's girl groups, bordertown Texican swing and torch-song balladry.

Night falls on Chicago, a melody wafts from a subterranean club, the air is thick with blues guitar, but it's not the blues. The drums drop into a beat like a slow-moving train, the piano twinkles with a dusty-saloon phrase, but it certainly isn't country. And then, that voice: delicate power, a break into the high notes to syncopate your heartbeat, a forlorn whisper shifts to a face-smacking belt, familiar but distant, a timbre you can't quite place but are certain has touched you before.

My Blue Valentine

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