Over 17 years in the making, The Trumpet Child—the 13th studio album from Cincinnati-based husband and wife duo (Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist) Over the Rhine —is a late-coming, albeit welcome and invigorating redefinition of the band’s sound. Known for their gritty emotionalisim and often dark aesthetic, The Trumpet Child is a sort of reawakening for OTR. Infusing an infectious blend of trumpets, trombones and saxophones to their standard acoustic set, The Trumpet Child sounds brighter and airier, as if the non-chalaunt freedom of the horns have liberated the band from an acoustically ethereal purgatory.

But despite the radically care-free sound of The Trumpet Child, the infectious lyrical pathos for which OTR is beloved remains, albeit translated in a new direction. A song like "Trouble," although saucy and sassy, wittily explores while thoughtfully deconstructing the vagrancies of infatuation and love. Yet later on, "Let's Spend the Day in Bed" celebrates the simplicity of life and love in the bright and equally ordinary images of everyday life.

But The Trumpet Child is not all light and air. The darker lyrical directions for which the band is known force their way to the surface periodically. The plodding, incessantly melancholic melody of "Nothing is Innocent" conjures meanings More >