OurStage

July/August 2008: If Dan Wilson and Pete Yorn had a folkier kid brother, he’d be David Newbould. Wielding a voice as wearily distinctive as Shawn Mullins, Newbould sings every word with a dusty radiance. Though his adeptness with hazy sketches predominates, Newbould blazes brightest when blurring alternate hues of exhaustion and exuberance—a talent especially evident on “Empty Arms” (whose stretched-out phrases evoke Wilson’s trademark vocal elasticity), the graceful “Family Man” and rollicking stomper “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do,” fueled by Cindy Cashdollar’s dobro adrenaline rush. When he sings “I’d rather be a man with a broken dream / than one who never had one” under the title track’s simmering desert sheen, he’s not kidding. —GG