Emerging during the midst of the Brit-pop era, cult outfit Drugstore's noirish brand of alt-country stood out like a sore thumb among the never-ending stream of laddish guitar bands, attracting the attention of Jeff Buckley, who covered their debut single, "Alive," and Thom Yorke, who was featured on their sole Top 20 hit single, "El Presidente," in the process. But following 2001's Songs for the Jet Set, the band went quiet, and Brazilian lead singer Isabel Monteiro spent the best part of the next decade battling with depression and a complete antipathy towards writing any new music. It's this rather gloomy period which forms the backdrop of their comeback album, Anatomy, as the smoky-voiced chanteuse pours her heart out on 11 sparse, self-produced tracks which sound just as at odds with the current music climate as their self-titled first effort, and their sophomore disc, Magic for White Lovers, did in the '90s. Despite recruiting a new lineup through various open auditions, only the brooding drums and Morricone-esque twanging guitars of opener "Sweet Chili Girl," "Aquamarine" (an equally Wild West-influenced duet with one of her new "cowboys," T. Cordero), and the twinkling Americana of the gorgeous "Standing Still" see Monteiro pursue the more expansive sound she can now afford. Instead, the majority of the album is dominated by minimal, stripped-back arrangements, which allow both the highly personal lyrical themes, and her world-weary and occasionally sinister tones to take center stage, whether it's the hushed acoustic folk of "Sinner's Descent," the woozy, reverb-laden atmospherics of "La Brume", or the heartbreaking French chanson-style "Lights Out." Drenched in gothic melancholy, Anatomy is unlikely to transcend the band's preferred low-key cult status, but it's a highly respectable return to form which shows that Monteiro's talents for mining the most beautiful sounds out of the darkest of subject matter hasn't deserted her during the lengthy time away. ~ Jon O'Brien, Rovi

1		Sweet Chili Girl
2		Lights Out
3		Sinner's Descent
4		Can't Stop Me Now
5		Aquamarine
6		Standing Still
7		Blackholes & Broken Hearts
8		Falling Rocks
9		La Brume
10		Clouds

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