Since releasing some of the finest shoegaze singles and albums of the early \’90s with his band Slowdive, Neil Halstead has slowly become one of Britain\’s most respected songwriters. While Slowdive had more to do with sounds than songs, the transition that band made into Mojave 3 in the mid-\’90s allowed Halstead to further emulate the largely late-\’60s-based folk-rock songwriters with whom he had become enamored.

\”Halstead describes his third solo album, Palindrome Hunches, as a \’happy accident.\’ \’I like the sound of the record and I like that it has a certain feel to it, even though I never knew it was what I want,\’ he says. Though Halstead says he never had an aesthetic in mind, the artists he listened to while writing the album over the past few years, like Bert Jansch and Annie Briggs, have an obvious influence on its folky blend of English pop and Americana. And it was a greater coincidence that Halstead found his ideal backing band in Wallingford, England, and stumbled into recording the album with them in a primary (i.e. elementary) school music room. Halstead proceeds with this kind of ease on the album too, even though the lyrics are some of his darkest.\” — MTV Hive.com