While Angelo De Augustine’s solemn, mournful You Needed Love, I Needed You – from his forthcoming Tomb full-length – will likely witness the Asthmatic Kitty signee compared with Justin Vernon ad nauseam, the deftly finger-picked composition ultimately shares more commonality with the likes of M. Ward and Patrick Watson. A fellow master of melancholy craft, it’s a quite incredible recording, the like of which doesn’t surface frequently: afforded space and time in which to breathe – albeit heavy, yearning breaths – De Augustine’s sorrowful rhetoric (“Did I give too much love to you?/ I’m sorry, but it’s what I had to do” he’ll confide in confessional lament) meets its consummate match in perfectly captured acoustic tones and spectral keys. A source of much-needed relief, and rife with manifest feeling, it’s a true masterstroke from the Californian.

Tomb is available from January 18^th via Asthmatic Kitty Records, while Angelo De Augustine plays Oslo on February 18^th.