The Devil & I

Although Leeds-based singer/songwriter Paul Marshall’s debut album, Vultures, was a largely acoustic affair, his first under the Lone Wolf alter ego builds on this template to deliver a brooding band sound akin to Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Magnolia Electric Company. Critics have compared his wistful vocal style to labelmates Fleet Foxes, but tracks on The Devil And I – such as ‘Keep Your Eyes On The Road’ and ‘Soldiers’ – veer into much darker territory. Bella Union. 2010. —- LONE WOLF has been a silent film, a book, a song, a TV series and a Native American chief, but never the alter ego of a singer, until Paul Marshall chose it to house his subtly sombre, gorgeously haunting songs. Having used his own name for 2007’s acoustic-based debut Vultures, Lone Wolf signals a much expanded sound. His new album, “The Devil and I”, dovetails perfectly with Bella Union’s stable of supreme melodicists and outstanding vocalists such as Fleet Foxes and John Grant. But “The Devil & I” stands alone, as lone wolves do. The melodies may be persuasively dreamy and the vocal delivery tender and restrained, but the mood is troubled. Vultures had its dark parts but little compares to these new songs, which grip like a vice, from murder ballad ‘15 Letters’ to the more oblique threat of ‘We Could Use Your Blood’ and ‘Buried Beneath The Tiles’, or strung across the triple whammy of ‘Russian Winter’, ‘Soldier’ and ‘Dead River’. And then there’s the two-part title track, from doomy-grey instrumental to the band version that closes the album on a beautifully haunted high.