Drunkard’s Prayer

The band describes their music as “post-nuclear pseudo-alt folk-tinged art pop,” and it is all that and more. Using primarily piano, bass and guitar—with occasional cello, sax and drums when needed—they build a series of heartfelt and slow burning melodies about finding your way after losing just about everything; hymns of loss, redemption, grace and affirmation, the kind of stuff that gets talked about deep into the night over a glass of wine. Karin Berquist’s vocals and emotive stylistic nuances give the simple lines a deeply moving poetic heft, a hushed conjuring located precisely between reverent plea and intoxicated mumbling. It is quiet music which, the band reminds us, should be played loud.