In addition to being a musician, Claire Cronin is also a poet, and the economical phrasing of her songs makes that apparent, where just as much is said as is left unspoken at the edges. “Tourniquet,” the first single from her new album Big Dread Moon, is a roiling storm cloud. Strings wrap around her guitar like a mournful cry, giving the whole thing a dusty old Western feel, blood and dirt and sinewy decay. “By the time I left, I was vacant: a haunted house with no basement,” Cronin sings, her voice astringent. “If you hate the night, then replace it/ With visions of light underground/ Dissolvable, impossible, transparent.”

Big Dread Moon is Cronin’s second full-length album — following 2016’s Came Down A Storm, which was a collaboration with Deerhoof guitarist John Dieterich — and “Tourniquet” is indicative of the the Los Angeles-bred, Athens, GA-based artist’s latest work, which is built on an atmosphere of encroaching darkness, a final reckoning whose shape or name might not yet be known but is surely coming.

Listen below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Tourniquet”
02 “What The Night Is Thinking”
03 “Wolfman”
04 “Saint’s Lake”
05 “Like A Shield”
06 “Call Out”
07 “Six Guns”
08 “The Lamb”

TOUR DATES:
06/21 Chicago, IL @ The Hungry Brain (w/ Advance Base & Moon Racer)
06/25 Toronto, ON @ Burdock (w/ Advance Base)
06/26 Montreal, QC @ La Vitrola (w/ Advance Base)
06/27 Brattleboro, VT @ Stone Church (w/ Advance Base & Ruth Garbus)
06/28 Portland, ME @ The Apohadion Theater (w/ Advance Base & w/ Greg Jamie)
06/30 Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right (w/ Advance Base, Matt Bachmann & Moon Racer)
07/01 Washington, DC @ Songbyrd Vinyl Lounge (w/ Advance Base)

Big Dread Moon is out 6/14 via Orindal Records. Pre-order it here.