Van Morrison's's "astral weeks" has come to signify a soulful impressionism that wells up from sources Wordsworth deemed "too deep for tears." Every note Nick Drake recorded before his accidental overdose in 1974 throbs with similar aching beauty. Morning-glory vocals, couplets of such Elizabethan elegance as "Open up the broken cup/Let goodly sin and sunshine in" and arrangements that wed jazz...

Tindersticks' last two albums lay somewhere amid the seductive thrill of an early James Bond film score, the enigmatic fragility of Leonard Cohen, the velvet romanticism of Neil Diamond and the graceful defeatism of Joy Division. But like the six-piece band's much-publicized penchant for fine, tailored suits, its music also seemed custom-made – sized, cut and stitched for listeners bored with...