The plangent-voiced Israeli singer-songwriter Geva Alon is now on his fourth album, and continues to build a UK following by sheer stealth. His time might have arrived, in fact: In The Morning Light proffers a failsafe combination of heavyweight alt.folk credentials (production by Thom Monahan, a studio band including Rufus Wainwright bassist Jeff Hill and Vetiver guitarist Daniel Hindman), impeccable musicianship and tasteful songcraft.
The Great Enlightenment, also a single, is a shop window for Alon’s particular strengths: its unforced, yearning drift, allied to swooning, plunging chord progressions, suggests Side One of Meddle as interpreted by Jeff Buckley – or, if you will, side one of Grace performed with Floydian propriety and restraint. Meanwhile, the petulant, clean-toned guitar and minor-chord self-absorption of Valor Girl could even be a less mannered Chris Isaak, while the intensely focused Grey Herons is as begrudgingly anthemic as the best of early Radiohead.
I See The Love and Carolina – floppy, melancholy amblers both – make sense of those oft-levelled Neil Young comparisons; the latter even features a compellingly unruly lead guitar outbreak. Again, however, Alon’s snakey chord patterns divert from this well-travelled road. If the likes of Ray LaMontagne can intermittently ensnare hearts worldwide, there’s no reason why Geva Alon shouldn’t also.
