Rejoicing in the Hands

At heart, Banhart is much more a storyteller than a confessional songwriter--a fact that suits his flexible technique: that's why one minute, he sounds like a reedy-voiced Appalachian folk-singer, finger-picking a banjo on the porch of a rural mountain shack, and the next, on "This Beard is for Siobhan", he's curling his lip like T Rex's Marc Bolan and hollering about having "a real good time". Banhart's approach may sometimes appear wilfully amateurish--hear how he goofs the first take of "Todolos Dolores", then recommences, tape still rolling--but this is accomplished, genuinely timeless stuff. --Louis Pattison