Pitchfork

Scout Niblett's last album, Kidnapped by Neptune, was so self-consciously confounding and listener-unfriendly that I resolved to approach any subsequent work with serious skepticism, if at all. But her work with Howe Gelb on his 2005 Arizona Amp & Alternator album convinced me that she had voice and presence beyond the Cat Power comparisons, and this duet, from her upcoming This Fool Can Die, is a further reminder that she's capable of writing some powerful music. Her Southern soul is exquisitely messy, caked in a red-dirt crust and spiked with loose guitars and a looser rhythm section that wanders in and out at will. "Kiss" crests early, with Niblett and Oldham oversinging their lines at each other like they're trying to express a yearning that lies just beyond the bounds of tasteful restraint. But the song's best moments come once the storm has subsided, when they sound like lovers locked in a desperate embrace they can't bear to break.