The first time I heard Chad Crouch was on his folk album about his city of preference,Portland, Oregon. His voice seemed like the type you only heard when "the world looked peaceful", and it was a voice set -- as with those of so many Hush artists to follow -- against music far more interesting and complex than standard singer-songwriter material. One song began in sing-speak about how this land is your land, this Portland of song, and it helped signal what the record would eventually mean to me. The sixty minutes of music on Portland, Oregon is as much an identifiable landscape, a city seen with eyes and ears and tapping toes, as it is strong, tasteful acoustic fare that makes friends relax and gamble on your homemade soups. Despite the gentleness of the melodies, it's not a CD I've ever played before sleep, as the songs are too picturesque: they're the type that inspire thought just by pressing you, beat after beat, against images you can strum toward.

Since then, Chad Crouch's landscapes have become far less identifible to me. It's not that I've had any problem enjoying his material -- the soulful side displayed on Stray, or the Chad-Meets-Tortoise work found on later comps -- but it's been like trying to look at Neil Young's Trans as an entity in itself. I end up saying "Is this really Chad?" far too much while listening to the songs.

The European pop of Blanket is more new territory for Chad to explore with a gifted group of musicians (Greg, Ross, and Jez, formerly of Brigantine), but the results are simply too resplendent to waste time thinking about the artists involved in their creation. Recorded live, the band sounds as if they're playing in your room as accompaniment to all the moments you spend staring outside. While they suggest a jazzier, less political Belle and Sebastian, they also waltz through the unexpected melodies of Blueboy, and the blissful escapades that a creatively active life always offers. And I should add that they don't remind me at all of Pedro the Lion, as their webpage suggests, except in terms of the sincerity which emanates from their music.

Among the highlights are "Deja Vu", "Sexy Ways", "Kittens", "Pigeon" and "Love Song #9", the catchiest French/English pop duet that you will ever hear. That said, there seem to be no disappointments. I've had an advance copy of Nice for the last two months, so I can easily attest to its staying power -- and to the continual surprises it offers listeners, such as when an exotic guitar or flute pops in to say hi. Nice frankly makes me almost hope that Chad explores this angle further. Given his past, that seems unlikely to happen, but pop fans like myself should be plenty grateful that he and his posse have at least stopped by.