Aventine

Obel’s 2010 award-winning debut, Philharmonics, was a delicate, simply constructed set of songs that evinced the singer/songwriter’s classical training and tasteful restraint. The Danish songwriter’s second full-length album, Aventine, has an even more captivating and hushed intimacy. Much of Aventine floats along with a hazy sense of melancholy, accompanied by Obel’s solo piano or a small chamber ensemble. Songs like “Fuel to Fire” and “The Curse” use the sparest of elements for haunting results. The evocative highlights are many, but “Smoke & Mirrors” is utterly disarming.