Dead Man’s Bones
Dead Man’s Bones - Anti-
FILTER Grade: 82%

There’s a poignant moment from 2007’s Lars and the Real Girl when Ryan Gosling’s character serenades Nat King Cole’s “L-O-V-E” to his beloved Bianca, and beside the beautiful weirdness of the scene, it was the actor’s chilling vibrato that drew attention. So he can sing, but can he make a record? Yes, he can. Take that revelation, add co-conspirator and friend Zach Shields, the vocals of the Silverlake Children’s Conservatory Choir, and a smattering of broken percussion and an electronic piano, and you’ve got enough ghoulishly vivid theatrics for an afterlife. The project was, in fact, meant to be set to a stage show that never materialized, but the songs do mostly stand quite well on their own…sort of. Tracks like the heavy “Name in Stone” and heavenly “Pa Pa Power” come to the duo effortlessly, demonstrating a real creative force, while others, like the title track, seem better suited to the ghosts of plays past.