by Jason Ankeny
A thrilling, revelatory debut, Tindersticks is a chamber pop masterpiece of romantic elegance and gutter debauchery. Within the framework of a remarkably consistent and mesmerizingly dank atmosphere, the group covers a stunning amount of ground -- &Her& is a crashing flamenco number, &The Walt Blues& is a tipsy organ instrumental, and &Paco de Renaldo's Dream& is an impenetrable cinematic monologue punctuated by subdued guitars, pianos, and strings. Stuart Staples' bacchanalian songs are obsessed with fluids, both bodily (&Blood,& &Jism&) and otherwise (&Nectar,& &Whiskey and Water,& &Raindrops&); no topic is too personal or too disturbing -- &Piano Song& is frightening in its callousness, while &City Sickness& is an unflinching examination of emotional and physical desperation. Fascinatingly constructed and strikingly ambitious, Tindersticks is insidiously labyrinthine: the music speaks softly but carries tremendous weight, and its hold grows more and more unbreakable with each listen.