Cold Specks, Blind Bartimaeus

[DOOM SOUL] If Adele had taken the breakup that provided the fuel for 21 really badly, she'd maybe sound something like Al Spx, a.k.a. Cold Specks, and she probably would've sold a few million less records. The Canada-born, England-based singer-songwriter likes to call her music "doom soul," and that's an unusually dead-on self-prescribed categorization. I Predict a Graceful Expulsion, her 2012 debut, is indeed soulful, but it's also plenty doomy, with Spx dragging her blues-damaged voice through a field of sorrowful folk arrangements. Despite its melancholy tone, Spx keeps the album from sinking completely into despair, and ends up with a record that exudes a unique, bruised power.