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** Damien Jurado

GHOST OF DAVID

(Sub Pop)

Seattle-based singer/songwriter Damien Jurado's Rehearsals for Departure was one of last year's alterna-country discoveries -- a magnificent, desolate song cycle that played like indie rock's answer to Springsteen's bleak Nebraska. Earlier this year Jurado released a bizarre spoken-word CD titled Postcards and Audio, but Ghost of David is the real follow-up, relying on the same combination of stripped-down folk-style accompaniment and raw-nerved songwriting. Jurado employs more piano than he did on the mostly guitar-and-harmonica-driven Rehearsals; his low-key delivery and mournful tone, on the other hand, remain very much intact. Indeed, Ghost of David is so muted and melancholy that at times it seems almost too delicate for this world. What's perplexing is Jurado's occasional cluttering of the mix with atonal electronic beeps and whistles, which just seem out of place in this context.

-- Allison Stewart