Andy Baxter and Kyle Jahnke pare their sound to the bare essentials on Let a Lover Drown You, with crucial assistance from producer John Paul White of Civil Wars fame. Basing the arrangements around acoustic strumming and carefully crafted vocal harmonies (often accompanied by little or nothing else), Baxter and Jahnke employ adventurous melodies on tunes like the intense “Bed Down” and the tenderhearted “Gold” to create gorgeously fragile art folk. Even when the sound expands with the orchestral atmospheres of “Catalogue” or “Until Tomorrow,” it’s always as subtle as it is swoon-worthy.
