My Damascan Road’s A Transistor Radio

God Help The Girl - “Act of the Apostle II” The Life Pursuit is one of my favorite albums from this decade, and this fact complicates my enjoyment of Stuart Murdoch’s latest project God Help The Girl in two big ways. First, it’s been quite a while since that record came out and my expectations for new Murdoch material is quite high thanks to that album, and so even the best tracks feel disappointing to me, even putting aside the fact that I generally don’t want to hear anyone but him singing his songs. Second, the songs that I enjoy the most on God Help The Girl happen to be reworked versions of numbers from The Life Pursuit, and that makes me feel as though I’m being somehow unfair to the other material. Though I do have mixed feelings about the new take on “Funny Little Frog” — I just don’t think it makes sense for the gender roles to be swapped on that one — I have no reservations about this new take on “Act of the Apostle II.” I enjoy the swing of this new arrangement, and the way Catherine Ireton sings the tune with a subtle balance of wryness and sincerity. Best of all, the new version delivers the kicker at the end of each verse with a sly grace, particularly on the line I enjoy the most: “I don’t think I could stand to be stuck, that’s the way that things were going.”

Buy it from Amazon.

- Matthew Perpetua