Music review: Elvis Perkins in Dearland

The Doomsday EP

4 stars

With its exaggerated, horn-driven intro, the opening of Elvis Perkins’ Doomsday EP sounds like a cross between M. Ward and a New Orleans funeral march. Throughout the album, this mix of indie pop and vintage influences proves enduring, resulting in a set of songs characterized by multiple genres and innumerable influences.

Unlike other albums tinged with the past, Perkins doesn’t draw from obvious sources. Like “Doomsday,” the opening track, the rest of the EP borrows from a brand of old-school Americana that reads more B.B. King than Bob Dylan.

And this is a good thing — while his voice might draw comparisons to Leonard Cohen or other famous, twangy troubadours, Perkins ensures that the songs on Doomsday retain a sense of originality. Where so many artists rely on the same tired muses — icons of ’60s and ’70s folk and rock — Perkins makes it clear that he studied the progenitors of American music.

Though the album recalls everything from spirituals (“Weeping Mary”) to Chuck Berry (“Stop Drop Rock And Roll”), it never spirals into disarray. Despite a roster of influences that could read like a musical history textbook, Perkins’ distinctive vocals and the horns that permeate each song retain coherence.

While each track maintains the listener’s interest, “Slow Doomsday” is the clear standout of the album, an epic, brooding, trumpet-infused track with organs that swell like heat on the Mississippi delta. In the wake of this hymn-like ode to an apocalypse, the rest of the album feels as dry as a history textbook.

On Doomsday, Perkins has crafted an album that recalls popular genres of the past, integrating sounds that came long before most modern musicians were born. Though it isn’t always epic, the record gives listeners a lesson on modern music’s bluesy, Americana roots.