Pitchfork

Matthew Houck brings his Phosphorescent southern folk to Daytrotter this week, offering up four new songs that showcase his creaky vocals and weedy, weary white blues. All are worth checking out, but of special interest are two tracks from his upcoming third album, still untitled but due, he says, in October. "A Death, A Proclamation", the weirder of the two, strays farthest from his previous albums, but "Cocaine Lights" is better. It's one of his more focused arrangements and some of his sickliest-sounding vocals, a glorious bummer that suggests Vic Chesnutt at his most enigmatic. Without making too much of his regional accent (he does pronounce again as ag'en, a subtle linguistic detail), he and his band-- mainly drums and piano-- make the rural desperation and self-loathing sound not just physical, but caked in red dirt.