The Zincs - Black Pompadour (2007)

Windy city auteur Jim Elkington's Zincs project sounds more like a full-time occupation on the group's artfully urban and understated third outing, Black Pompadour. Any and all inflections of the British folk-rock that Elkington brought with him to Chicago from the U.K. have vanished. A heady mix of mid-period the the and Element of Light-era Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians, Pompadour's strengths are often subtle enough to miss the first time around. Spacious opener "Head East, Kaspar," with its driving toms, minimal chord changes and laconic vocal delivery is pure atmosphere, the beginning of a long road trip that promises a memorable day but has no intentions of taking you outside the city limits. It, like album highlights "Coward's Corral," the spooky "Rice Scars" the jazzy "Finished in this Business" and the sunset closer "Rich Libertines" show a band that is remarkably succinct and wholly efficient in fleshing out their chief songwriter's dark wit with parts that are so dead-on that they don't really appear until the third or fourth spin. This is a sleepier record than 2005's Dimmer, but it rewards the careful listener with enough waking dreams to fuel a hundred overcast Sunday mornings.