Dongs of Sevotion

Dongs of Sevotion is an exercise in the power of the unsaid.

It sounds remarkably dry, as if the air was sucked out of the recording studio, leaving only the essential vibrations of a thick bass string and Bill Callahan's resonant baritone.

This is Smog at a fascinating crossroads: moving away from the lo-fi hiss of the early nineties but refusing the lushness of the previous record, Knock Knock. The result is a skeletal, rhythmic folk that feels both intimate and strangely distant, like a conversation overheard through a thin apartment wall.