Decimation Blues

This is emotional, mature art you listen to on some lonesome night--or with a loved one--intently, focused, and open. You will not be disappointed.

Decimation Blues examines with more boldness some of the possibilities hinted at in his previous recordings and brings them shuddering to life.

This is the sound of an artist open to a range of possibilities so vast they can't help but contradict each other, and he just can't be bothered by the confusion or annoyance those contradictions may cause his listenership. In the end it doesn't matter anyway, as Raposa is already on to one of the album's many moments of brilliance by the time our heads have stopped spinning from one of its moments of unfettered oddness.

Decimation Blues is solid throughout, with just a few scattered moments of unresolved confusion.

Castanets manage to keep those raw influences in sight, whilst tweaking and twisting them into something different, and at times intriguingly strange.

Decimation Blues has undeniably strong songs on the more experimental end of the spectrum and undeniably strong songs on the folky end of the spectrum. However, their placement together on one album (alongside a number of less successful songs) results in an extremely uneven listening experience.

A fragmented 12-song album that trends toward the same path that he already spent five albums exploring.