Sinai Vessel "Brokenlegged" LP

Sinai Vessel was originally conceived as a one-man project for singer/guitarist Caleb Cordes before ultimately becoming the fully-realized, collaborative group that would create the highly anticipated debut full-length Brokenlegged. Forged in tight-knit DIY communities and strengthened by a relentless touring ethos, the stunning album balances Cordes' unique gift for first-person storytelling with a more markedly communal energy. While the trio's excellent 2014 EP Profanity drew on the outsized drama of mewithoutYou, the canny, observational nuances of Pedro the Lion, and the literary smarts of Bright Eyes' early-'00s golden era, Brokenlegged allows its eight songs to stretch out and plumb wide fields of human emotion, with complex, challenging results. The record is, by definition, "lived-in": the songs here find people trying to co-exist with and reconcile the doubts, anxieties, and ironies that have always been a theme in the band's work. If Profanity found Sinai Vessel glimpsing hard truths through a glass darkly, then Brokenlegged finds the trio wondering what one does next.