“Sunrise“
from the album With My Left Hand I Raise the Dead
2007
iTunes
Insomnia pop has never been so perceptive. Doveman is best known for the sleepy, barely there vocals and minimalist instruments of its frontman, Vermont native and melancholy master Thomas Bartlett. Both lend muscle to Bartlett’s delicately executed commentaries on solitude and remorse. What makes With My Left Hand I Raise the Dead different from the 2005 debut, The Acrobat, is the unquestionable vocal strength. It shows Bartlett’s emerging confidence in allowing his voice to stand apart from the instrumentals that bolster his fading veneer.
The ever-revered Bartlett does an extraordinary job shedding light on the human experience. It makes an argument for the beauty of restrained momentum in all things worthy of contemplation, and for the necessity of quiet observation. If we are too preoccupied to do so ourselves, at least we have Bartlett to show us the beauty lurking beneath life’s most damning heartbreaks.