Baltimore singer-songwriter Cass McCombs returns with Wit’s End. It’s been two years since 2009’s excellent Catacombs, and each of the eight tracks on Wit’s End (his fifth album) have an overall sense of sadness and weight. It starts off with the soft-rock ballad, “County Line,” that highlights McCombs’ gentle and beautiful voice and knack for crafting rich songs that are full of pathos. Most of songs are downtempo, gentle tunes that explore themes of loneliness, isolation and heartbreak. This may sound like a huge downer, but it’s actually not. The music is beautiful, the compositions are patient and lush, and McCombs’ vocals are like a fine-tuned machine with a delicate falsetto one song, and a soothing Leonard Cohen-esque delivery the next. – Written by DBosket
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