I was informed that the highlight of this album was the hurt, understated brilliance of the lead singer's vocals. Someone must have gotten this album mixed up with Red House Painters' "Ocean Beach" (easy to do; the similarities are suspiciously obvious), because Chris Hooson sounds like a recently-divorced accountant drunkenly consoling himself with karaoke. This is not to say there aren't any highlights. When Chris allows his vocals to lay back into the arms of the lush piano and guitar arrangements, I can go along with it. Because let me state that the music is, in fact, brilliant. Perfect, even. "Signal Hill" is an excellent example of how less can be more, musically speaking, and the instrumentals "Raining Somewhere" and "I Turned Away So That I Might Not See" are always worth a listen, even if I'm tempted to accuse the latter of merely being a reverse-engineered gesture drawing of The Smiths' "Last Night I Dreamed That Somebody Loved Me". Ah, but the songwriting. [claps hands] People! Lines like "Signal Hill"'s "I'm lying in bed so drunk/...will I always be so alone?" are not "honest" or "economical" songwriting. It's immature songwriting. Most of the cliches in "Close Enough To Tears" and "The Cost of Living" would make a 14-year-old blogger wince. So why am I giving this album three stars whilst I bash it from Hell to breakfast? Because, believe it or not, I still recommend picking up this album. Even with all I've said about the vocals, "Clean Linen Sheets" and "Morning Heavy" are actually great little numbers; Chris isn't trying to out-mumble the harmonium here, and the lyrics, while not brilliant, avoid most of the obvious songwriting cliches that plague so much of the rest of the album. Also, "When Skies Are Grey" grew on me quite a bit after a few listens, being a cute, unthreatening little ditty that prevents the album from closing on too much of a downer. The music on this album, as perfect as it is, is just enough to get past the disappointing vocal work, and to be fair Hooson hits his mark just enough to keep me from never listening to him again. If you're wondering why I'm being so hard on this album, it's because on some level I actually really like it, and am all too aware that with a better vocalist and a little editing on the lyrics this would probably be one of the greatest albums of the past five years. It's them being so close and yet so far that I find truly frustrating.

With this album Dakota Suite proves that it is possible to maintain the high standard of their previous albums. It's just a matter of time before the whole world will discover Chris Hooson's voice and their excellent slow core music.