KT Tunstall - Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon (2013)

There was an experiment with a near-electro album in 2010, and that was enough to send KT Tunstall in the opposite direction for this record. The sparse, countrified tone is new for her – it was recorded in Arizona, with Howe Gelb producing – but fits the reflective mood of the songs, half of them written after her father suddenly died and her marriage ended. The hallmark is delicacy: every song feels fragile. The track Made of Glass even has fragility as its subject – a friend who died of cancer left her a vase, which inspired this gently strummed meditation about breakable gifts. How You Kill Me is also full of pathos; "Just as I sing like a bird, you shoot me down for your fun," she accuses, over brushed cymbals and hypnotic bass. Waiting on the Heart is the most alt-country moment – Gelb has made free with the pedal steel and reverb, and it's a stunner. In fact, there's little here that doesn't make you wonder where Tunstall has been hiding all this beauty until now.

TRACKLIST
1 Invisible Empire
2 Made of Glass
3 How You Kill Me
4 Carried
5 Old Man Song
6 Yellow Flower
7 Crescent Moon
8 Waiting On the Heart
9 Feel It All
10 Chimes
11 Honeydew
12 No Better Shoulder
13 Feel It All – Band Jam (Radio Edit)