Among the growing pantheon of freak folkers, Raymond Raposa, the one constant pillar in the constantly evolving Castanets, is perhaps the least “freakish” and the most freaky. While the likes of Devandra Banhart and his deranged group of followers dress in homeless chic, craft schizophrenic circus music and speak entirely in semi-lucid drug rants, Raposa writes relatively simple acoustic compositions overflowing with eerie, depressing lyrics.

Castanets’ latest album, In the Vines, does take a bit of a detour from Raposa’s well-defined, chilling path, but only to explore even darker material. Song after song passes by on In the Vines consisting of little more than glacial, programmed beats, empty acoustic guitars and Raposa’s nasal voice that almost invariably monotones lines like “So rain will come/ So it’s going to be sad and it’s going to be long.” “Three Months Paid” does change things up a bit by adding some blipping, old-school Nintendo electronics to Raposa’s haunting folk, but even they conform to the album’s dour mood, sounding more like the system gasping for its last breaths than joyous childhood nostalgia.

To his credit, no one can make a sullen, spacious folk record quite like Raposa, and In the Vines captures this atmosphere better than any of his previous releases, making it remarkable in its own way. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to listen to the record all the way through. Though it creates its mood almost perfectly, the only time this mood ever seems remotely appropriate is at three in the morning, a pile of alcohol and pill bottles growing around your feet as you try to cope with your significant other dumping you because you couldn’t get over the death of your best friend.