The Album Leaf — A Chorus Of Storytellers

After 10 years, four albums, numerous tours and collaborations with Sigur Ros, Jimmy LaValle has achieved the kind of post-rock meets pop masterpiece he's seemed to be working toward since forming The Album Leaf as a Tristeza side-project.

A Chorus Of Storytellers uses a live band and was recorded in rural Washington State for the first time. It is, unsurprisingly, his most organic-sounding album to date.

While the keyboard sounds link this with his previous work, the live drums and more open sound are a departure from LaValle's last record, 2006's Into The Blue Again. If anything, this sounds like a more streamlined pop take on the work of his frequent Icelandic collaborators.

But don't let the aural changes turn you off — A Chorus Of Storytellers is a terrifically sublime record that shows that a decade in, LaValle's not afraid to change things up.

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