This 26-year-old South Carolina bred singer/songwriter, guitarist and keyboard player inhabits the same '60s-and '70s-style shadows that fell across U.K. bands like the House of Love, Talk Talk, the Smiths and Deacon Blue during the otherwise glitzy '80s. With brave accomplishment and the assistance of producer Rupert Hine and string arranger Simon Hale, Sheik conjures up the aura of the pre-video era: groaning violas and nighttime suffering, acoustic guitars and tentative high spirits.

Duncan Sheik opens with three exceptionally striking songs. On "She Runs Away," a man describes a relationship with a woman who shows up in his life, says insightful things, then disappears. The music – an interacting blend of electric, acoustic and slide guitars with Hale's soaring strings – matches her mercurial behavior. But the most important contrast in Sheik's work is between the elusive, even vaporish characters in his songs and the dazzling strength of his performances, particularly his raw and articulate singing. The more the couple in "In the Absence of Sun" disagree with each other, the more their personalities seem to dissolve. Yet in the song itself, the melodies bloom into fluid choruses, with Hale's orchestrations suggesting the pleasures of a sunny holiday in Rome. Similarly, the protagonist in the next song, "Barely Breathing," may be doing just that, but Sheik's music kicks with robust syncopations.

"The world is much brighter/Than it ever used to be," Sheik sings in "Home." He may be enamored of antique pop, but Sheik is never merely retro. This album is a defiant debut – beautiful and benevolent of spirit. (RS 745)

JAMES HUNTER