Tom Brosseau
‘Empty Houses Are Lonely’
Fat Cat Records

No one sounds like Tom Brosseau but Tom Brosseau. His voice is high, almost childlike, but with a pleasantly strange vibrato that brings to mind Roy Orbison or Johnny Cash (somehow). Whatever it is, he should keep doing it.

The LA resident and Fargo expatriate follows his 2005 label debut, “What I Mean to Say Is Goodbye” with another sparse nouveau folk CD, “Empty Houses Are Lonely.” Where “Goodbye” featured a batch of songs that mined the experiences of Brosseau’s youth, “Houses” jumps around a bit thematically. Collected over two years, the songs still manage to sound like an album together.

Brosseau stretches out musically here, showcasing tasteful and skilled fills on the acoustic guitar. Along with drums and harmonica, some other previously underemployed tricks find their way onto the CD, too. Pump organ and cello show up on “Heart of Mine,” a dreamy highlight that features an almost jazzy ascending guitar line. “Heart of mine you knew too well, more than me how long I was fooled into thinking that you loved me,” he sings. The cello and clarinet arrangement is beautiful, showing up only as much as the song needs, letting Brosseau’s ghostly voice rise to the top.

Subtle overtones of ’30s jazz and pop find their way into the guitar chord voicings. On “Hurt to Try,” a gorgeous and rich song, dry drums (that stay away from cymbals for the most part), softly played chorded electric bass, Ebow’d electric guitar, and what sounds like a Mellotron show up. It’s a different take on Brosseau’s style than on “Goodbye,” but his character stays intact throughout. 

Many would try to fire up an entirely different sound following a debut as sparse as Brosseau’s, but small strokes seem to be his modus operandi. And what else can you hope for in music but some new nooks and crannies to be explored, some new stories to be told in an interesting way? Tom Brosseau’s “Empty Houses Are Lonely” is a dark and lovely journey through one interesting noggin.