Carnation

There are moments of genuine noise and terror on singer-songwriter Daughn Gibson's debut solo LP, All Hell, but not of the devil's-horns kind. Instead, the 31-year-old Carlisle, Pennsylvania, resident fashions ghostly, haunting country-ish ballads out of Christian gospel samples and looping audio software while his rich baritone narrates small-town tragedy. Gibson's affinity for country music– as well as the genre's cherished storytelling tradition– began when he started driving trucks for a living nearly a decade ago. "I started listening to country when there was nothing else to listen to on the radio when I was driving," he says. "I started liking the stories, no matter how absurd they ...