Patrick Watson — Close To Paradise

When your daily acid dose has just kicked in and you're kind of stressed about the fact that your skin's dripping off your face, Patrick Watson is the perfect guy to pry the scissors from your grip and smoothly talk you down. Close To Paradise, the Montreal singer-songwriter's latest album, is trippy yet pretty, commanding but, for the most part, calm. Watson's delicately feminine voice is lilting and his melodies are lovely, bedded in stray bits of ambience and elegant classically infused instrumental passages. So please, stop yelling at the refrigerator, everything is going to be OK.

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