Willis Earl Beal: Noctunes | Album Review

Willis Earl Beal first appeared on the scene in 2012 with the widely admired Acousmatic Sorcery album.

Since then, the singer-songwriter and former soldier has led an eventful, peripatetic life coloured by record label politics, arrests, bouts of homelessness and relationship trauma.

Beal’s new album is a blue-of-the-night special, an album whose sparse sound and off-kilter keyboard loops are perfect for the singer to talk about love and loss.

His voice too has adapted to the surroundings and subject matter – his folky, soulful croon sounds a heck of a lot more fragile than on previous records.

The honesty Beal displays on such bleak-sounding tracks as Flying So Low, Solution and Able to Wait is particularly moving, as he rakes over the hurt that comes with a relationship falling asunder.

One for the broken-hearted.

[ willisearlbeal.com ]