Courtney Wing — Bouquet Of Might And Fury

"The Cruel Of Fair," the excellent lead-off track from Courtney Wing's third album is everything a good song should be — complex but instantly accessible, catchy as all hell, but impossible to tire of.

While Bouquet Of Might And Fury doesn't quite sustain the track's grandeur, the album remains an impressive venture into the possibilities of being a singer-songwriter when one thinks outside the acoustic box.

Wing's voice occasionally has a gruff Dylanesque quality, but as interesting as his lyricism is, it's really the music that's the big draw. The press release refers to it as "symphonic folk," but that's an understatement.

Multi-instrumentalist Wing is backed by a supporting cast comprising musicians who've played with the Arcade Fire, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Bell Orchestre and trip-hop DJ hero Amon Tobin. There are French horns and strings aplenty, and there are appearances by Montreal opera ensemble the Liederwolfe vocal Ccllective.

This music is meticulously arranged and passionately played, and is music at its most widescreen — it's the soundtrack for the closing moments of an intelligent film where the lovers are triumphant. Epic "Chloe" features Wing's strongest vocals, his bellows breaking into falsetto while instruments clang into negative space silence. There's also "Tragic Blonde," which flashes forth with the sly swaggering delivery of a Mick Jagger or David Bowie. Sort of.

But the album feels decidedly longer than its eight songs and 38 minutes. The slower, quieter tracks might be a little too slow and quiet. Still, when Wing and his assembled army is playing at full firepower, it's pretty spectacular and spectacularly pretty.