Richard Hawley — Standing at the Sky's Edge (2012)

Richard Hawley's latest album, like one or two before it, fades in slowly. As the sound rises from nothingness, you'll be forgiven if you expect his typical reverb-laden Rickenbacker sound to wash over you. Don't get too comfortable, though—when this album comes on, it hits like a brick wall. With the opener, "She Brings the Light," Hawley is clearly in new territory, and he spends most of the rest of the album exploring it.

There's never been a real throughline in Hawley's album releases. He has always had something of a signature sound, to be sure, but his development from album to album hasn't always followed a clear course—he hasn't been consistently getting heavier, or lighter, or grander. Still, this album feels like a real departure. Beyond the wall-of-sound opening, he's working here with a lot of sonic elements that aren't familiar from his previous work. The title track's bongo interlude, for instance, or the spacey over-production of "Time Will Bring You Winter," will surprise longtime fans. The thing is that these elements work—the sound is mature, fleshed out. If this were the first Richard Hawley album you'd ever heard, you'd have to assume he'd been developing exactly this sound for quite some time.

He does momentarily return to more familiar ground for the pairing of "Seek It" and "Don't Stare at the Sun." They're not bad, but it's not the best material here. Certainly, they don't integrate seamlessly into this album—in the context of so much volume, such songs take on a quaintness that doesn't well suit them. Then again, perhaps it's that Hawley himself is moving on from such spaces, and his lack of engagement is showing. "The Wood Collier's Grave" seems to indicate the latter—simple as it is, it works beautifully, and tracks perfectly back into the crashing "Leave Your Body Behind You." Evidently, Hawley is ready for  a new sound. But if this album is any indication, he'll be just as comfortable and masterful as ever.