James Vincent McMorrow: up on the downbeat

Let’s get the obvious thing out the way first. Yes, James Vincent McMorrow’s voice will remind you of a certain Justin ‘Bon Iver’ Vernon.

The quiver, the well-worn timbre and the fantastic emotional delivery are all present and correct. At least the Dublin singer-songwriter didn’t go off to live in a cabin in the woods and kill a couple of deer for food. No, he headed, instead, to an isolated house by the sea to make his debut album. It’s not known if he had to kill any animals with his bare hands.

That album, Early In the Morning, is a striking and alluring affair. McMorrow's shaggy songs benefit hugely from his bluesy, raspy, downbeat warble, but they also have some really smart, haunting atmospherics to their credit as well.

If I Had A Boathas a sweep of melancholic drama, which we've come to know and admire from acts such as The Antlers, while Follow You Down to the Red Oak Treewill be familiar to many as the tune that accompanied a recent Barnados ad campaign. The year may be just two months old, but here's one we'll be reckoning with for the rest of 2010.

- www.myspace.com/ jamesvmcmorrow