Review: Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter

RECOMMENDED

 With the band’s third album, “Like, Love, Lust & the Open Halls of the Soul,” Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter strike such a difficult balance that only country-folk veterans could achieve it: every note within the band’s soundscape feels carefully plotted, its performance tight and restrained, yet it’s difficult to think of a more soulful and emotive album this year, or a more versatile repertoire—the band eases through country, folk, pop, heartbreaking soul, bouncy R&B, all in the course of twelve songs. Mostly, the soul emotes from Sykes herself, her voice sounding like it’s been through at least 100 breakup speeches, but ex-Whiskeytown Phil Wandscher proves just as essential, his slide guitar blending seamlessly into whatever genre Sykes decides to venture through, and through those empty halls of the soul that the epic title foreshadows. (Andy Seifert)