New Roses by Ben De La Cour

New Roses by Ben De La Cour

'New Roses' by Ben De La Cour

On five previous albums, singer-songwriter Ben de la Cour refined a subgenre of Americana he has, with a sidelong wink, termed Americanoir . On his sixth, New Roses , he puts up digital billboards to illuminate the subgenre’s dirty streets.

Which is a dramatic, noirish way of writing that he adds synthesizers and computerized loops (the latter via instrumentation listed as “dorkatron” in the credits) and thereby gives a dolefully glitchy modernity to his takes on traditionalist country, rock, and folk.

In the glitches and in vocal tone, de la Cour resembles Beck in the latter’s periodic introspective turns on LPs like Sea Change and Morning Phase . The opening track here, “I Must Be Lonely,” creates bleary desolatio