Reviews:

Poor Devendra Banhart. Everyone wants a piece of his ass, and the outsider folk prodigy's full-bandwidth voice is an even more contested commodity-though not all the would-be svengalis who've come a-courting understand the nature of his gift. Last year, ex-Swan Jarboe announced her intention to mold the impressionable youth into the next Billie Holiday; given his vaudevillian bent, the singer-songwriter might have sounded more like Tiny Tim. Fortunately, Banhart's mentor, producer Michael Gira, has temporarily monkey-wrenched his former mate's plan; the vocals are downright dudely on Rejoicing in the Hands, release number three for Gira's Young God imprint. At least Banhart sounds more butch than Marc Bolan, whose wobbly vibrato he continues to channel, though far more selectively than in his four-track days. The tremulousness ripples and fades like a partially subterranean brook on "A Sight to Behold," just one hue in a varicolored display of focused diction and supple phrasing, and Banhart does indeed conjure Lady Day when he warbles "It's like golden corn/ In love's golden glow/ It's the little head inside your hole." Then, on the surreal verse capper, "And I'll spread some sparkling thoughts," he goes all late Tim Buckley before ending the line flatter than a pack of Dunhills. And Gira, who shows atypical restraint behind the mixing desk for most of the album, here sets Banhart's voice and guitar in a diaphanous diadem of strings. So Banhart's still the cosmic androgyne par excellence. He's just more macho about it now.

"Poor Devendra Banhart. Everyone wants a piece of his ass, and the outsider folk prodigy's full-bandwidth voice is an even more contested commodity-though not all the would-be svengalis who've come a-courting understand the nature of his gift. Last year, ex-Swan Jarboe announced her intention to mold the impressionable youth into the next Billie Holiday; given his vaudevillian bent, the singer-songwriter might have sounded more like Tiny Tim. Fortunately, Banhart's mentor, producer Michael Gira, has temporarily monkey-wrenched his former mate's plan; the vocals are downright dudely on Rejoicing in the Hands, release number three for Gira's Young God imprint. At least Banhart sounds more butch than Marc Bolan, whose wobbly vibrato he continues to channel, though far more selectively than in his four-track days. The tremulousness ripples and fades like a partially subterranean brook on ""A Sight to Behold,"" just one hue in a varicolored display of focused diction and supple phrasing, and Banhart does indeed conjure Lady Day when he warbles ""It's like golden corn/ In love's golden glow/ It's the little head inside your hole."" Then, on the surreal verse capper, ""And I'll spread some sparkling thoughts,"" he goes all late Tim Buckley before ending the line flatter than a pack of Dunhills. And Gira, who shows atypical restraint behind the mixing desk for most of the album, here sets Banhart's voice and guitar in a diaphanous diadem of strings. So Banhart's still the cosmic androgyne par excellence. He's just more macho about it now.

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