Tom Wilson’s latest self-reinvention recruits members of The Cowboy Junkies and The Skydiggers, assembling a lineup of Canadian folk and roots powerhouses. Lee Harvey Osmond is one of the better new band names in recent memory, and gratefully, A Quiet Evil lives up to it. The band’s jazz-folk fusion feels like Tom Waits on his best behaviour, with songs that are innocent on the surface, but hint at sin lingering underneath.
Wilson’s voice rarely rises above a whisper on Evil, but songs like “The Love of One,” “Summer Girl” and “Blade of Grass” command attention nonetheless. Despite an apparent sameness from song to song, the album possesses an amazing versatility as a whole. A Quiet Evil — perfectly titled, by the way — would be equally appropriate in a hammock on a summer afternoon or in an opium den at four in the morning. No matter which one of those is your vice, Wilson helps make it feel right.
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