You'd expect a singer-songwriter with dreadlocks and smoky eyeliner to sound fairly unusual, especially when he's foregone his own name, Peter Wilson, for a showy moniker, and calls his songs things like Wake Up Scarlett and Salvation Tambourine. Apparently not.
Songs From the Deep Forest is an unusual listening experience precisely because Duke Special's music sounds so absurdly radio-friendly. This despite his lyrics about dervish mothers, villain hearts and woven hats, his thick Belfast twang, and the main push of the music being the clomp-clomp-clomp of a vaudevillian piano. But Wilson's voice also has the same warm, nasal quiver of Rufus Wainwright, and the way his songs swell at their climax brings to mind the pop drama of Keane.
