Band of the Week: Micah P. Hinson

Listening to Micah P Hinson means coughing up some cash ... cause he's one of those rare artists who once you hear his songs, you run out to pick up everything he’s recorded.

That’s what I had to do, at least, after repeatedly listening to an advance of his latest album, Micah P. Hinson and The Opera Circuit -- a cd due out next Tuesday on Jade Tree.

It’s clear that the grumbly-voiced Texan possesses the same sort of magic that Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen have ... and while the two are definite influences, Hinson brings enough that’s his own to the proceedings to make his music sound original, fresh, and new.

“we're gonna fuck them up,” Hinson promises in a section of his website. “they won’t see it coming. we bring the wrath. we are the wrath. people fear us and cower at our coat-tails.”

It's good copy, but the real way that Hinson will catch people off guard isn’t by coming off as exceptionally gruff or hard-hearted, but by how goddamn bittersweet his music often is. There’s a certain quixotic dreaminess to many of his songs.

Take Letter From Huntsville, a rollicking, banjo-plucking, horn-filled number based on a dispatch to the singer from a friend who's “heart hurts so bad” but promises she's “moving to California someday.”

Or You’re Only Lonely, where Hinson sings hauntingly about waiting for a lover across the sea, while violins waft in, intercuting building, crashing guitar work. And Diggin’ A Grave, a tune that makes digging someone’s grave in the moonlight sound somehow romantic…

And after listening to the these tracks, the rest of the many noteworthy songs on the album, and Hinson’s earlier cd and EP, I’ve got to say that I’m really fucking looking forward to seeing him play here at Spaceland on Thursday, the 26th with Matt Pond PA.

MP3: Jackeyed