Just as Filling in the Cracks suggested, Matt Boroff’s 2014 full-length album Sweet Hand of Fate represents a remarkable sonic achievement. The apocalypse that loomed on previous albums comes to full-out fruition. “Lost” and the cataclysmic “My Black Heart” begin the album from the bottom of a hole, with no way out other than sheer determination. Drumbeats sound like nails in the coffin. Vocal choirs evoke Biblical damnation. Keyboards offer solitary phrases, and guitars allow for strategic chording among the disjointed riffs that further ramp up the tension.
Boroff delivers lyrics like a concerned country parson who sidelines as a blues singer from the fields. His somber bedside manner is redolent of Mark Lanegan (who guests on “Garbage Man”), Lee Hazlewood, Tindersticks, and Nick Cave. Whether Boroff’s punching the clock (“Here in Limbo”) or exploring the ominous situations above him (“Up Up Up in Flames”) or below him (the title track, “X”), he does so with a cinematic sense of horror that’s darker than the soundtrack to True Blood. “Turns Me On” proves he’d have it no other way.

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Sweet Hand of Fate

Release Date : October 23, 2013
Format : CD