Blessed Are the Trials We Will Find

Album Review

Whether Tiger Saw's Dylan Metrano and Juliet Nelson are an item is anyone's guess, but their band's hushed, melancholy sound, lovely boy-girl harmonies, and overly ponderous lyrics so clearly recall other slowcore couples like Low's Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker or Ida's Dan Littleton and Elizabeth Mitchell that romance would seem an inevitable element of the equation. Luckily for Blessed Are the Trials We Will Find, the music isn't nearly as clunky as the album title — though plainly a product of their influences, Metrano and Nelson possess voices that complement each other beautifully, and the songs' plaintive melodies and spectral arrangements would do early Low and Ida records proud. If and when Tiger Saw will evolve to create records of comparable beauty and grace as their inspirations remains to be seen, but Blessed Are the Trials is a good start.