Caught In The Trees is album number eight for the Seattle singer-songwriter Damien Jurado, and his fourth for Secretly Canadian specifically. For this album he got a couple of close friends and musicians to help craft the set of songs, Jenna Conrad has appeared on one of his records before, here she plays cello on many of the songs, shares a writing credit, and duets on one she penned herself. Long-time collaborator, ever since 2002’s I Break Chairs, Eric Fisher also contributed to the writing and recording process, and J. Tillman mixer Kory Kruckenberg is on Engineering duties (there are other contributors, but they are unknown to me). My previous experience with Jurado’s work is limited to two albums from relatively early in his career, Rehearsals For Departure had a loose and poppy feel, often undercut by a melancholy tendency, Ghost Of David was a masterpiece of bare-bones fragility and desperateness. Caught In The Trees is like neither at a glance, but live with it a bit and Jurado’s inherent skill as a songwriter shows through. The sound of this album can ably be described as folk-rock, with about half the songs embracing electric guitar/bass and loud crashing parts mixed with acoustic quiet parts, and the other half sounding more typical of what you might expect, with ballads and folk/Americana/country tinged sad songs. The rockers share a restrained intensity, ‘Coats Of Ice’ plays on tension with an insistent two chord riff, and a bass that rises but never reaches, ‘Go First’ has a slightly distorted and fuzzy riff dominating the progression of the song, with wailing melodic vocals from Jurado and some similar backing from Conrad. ‘Sheets’ is something of a bridge between the folkier quieter songs and the rockier ones, with anger and frustration finally letting loose. Starting with an upset and sad tone, with evocative acoustic picking, piano and some light hand-claps, at 2:15 it changes tack, the lyrics are related from a narrator who has to fight for the attentions of his love, and is frustrated only because they put themselves into that messy position. The feelings of the narrator bubble over, the piano chords get hit harder and harder, the drums set a martial beat, until a guitar with feedback floods the song with bitten off chords.The quieter songs are altogether more bittersweet than bitter, ‘Last Rights’ has a cello and organ underlay, with hoarse high crooning from Jurado and Conrad and the typical acoustic guitar pinging off in opposite speakers. The lovelorn lyrics depict a relationship where one side gives more than the other, but the narrator is defeated by this rather than angered. This is all somewhat continued with ‘Everything Trying’, where Conrad and Jurado more or less duet, this time there is mostly just guitar with a touch of reverb, as if played in a big room, with slow subtle accompaniment from piano then cello and violin as the song gets more earnest and maudlin. The lyrics paint the picture of a fissure in a relationship where both sides are wrong, but one of them doesn’t want to relent their accusation. These examples are typical of Jurado, he always presents relationship as difficult and messy, there is usually hurt and damage on both sides, and there is hardly ever any resolution or redemption, just whatever broken pieces can be picked up.There are certainly ways in which Jurado has changed since I last heard something by him, such as the way he presents his songs and the overt instrumental touches, but he’s still there underneath all that dressing, the lyrics still depress, the melodies he sings and plays on guitar still mine the same territories. 70%mp3:> Damien Jurado: 'Gillian Was A Horse' Damien Jurado on MySpace