The good and evil of Nathan Amundson

Nathan Amundson begins his second album with an unaccompanied repitition of the line, "There's an evil in this room." This quote solidifies his place in the camp of indie singer/songwriters made possible by Nick Drake. All of them, without fail, cannot conjure up the demons as effectively or write as interesting skeletal song structures as the legendary, dead Brit. Nate Amundson is no exception, but like the similar sounding Damien Jurado, Will Oldham or Elliott Smith he has talent, a lot of it. Like those early '70s singer/songwriters though, the new breed suffers from homogeneity. Where Amundson is able to surpass such contemporaries as Jurado is with an edgier front, darker chord changes and minor backing music. Rivulets feature several of his Minnesota-based friends, including label-head Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of Low and the backing vocals by Jessica Baliff. Similar to the slowcore style of Low, the music is literally slow, but unlike the notoriously quiet Duluth trio, the Rivulets' albums fail to build tension. Without bass and drums propelling Amundson's own vocals and guitar, and a failure of diction, Debridement comes out evenly. Though the snippets of lyric that are initially recognizable sound captivating, the pure pleasantness of the music abandons the idea of\ncaptivation