James Vincent McMorrow: Post Tropical – review

Bon Iver comparisons were inevitable for the wintry folk of James Vincent McMorrow's 2011 debut: beard, falsetto and recording sessions in an isolated cottage saw to that. They're valid here too: like Justin Vernon, McMorrow has renounced backwaters minimalism to create a richly textured second album – his remarkable, soulful voice competes for space with electronic pulses and digital brass. But McMorrow's USP lies perhaps in the grand gesture; there's a multitracked theatricality to songs such as Gold and Looking Out, which costs him some of the shiver factor of more understated peers, but delivers moments of magnificence too.