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  • Broward-Palm Beach New Times

    The Agent from Iran

    How a mother of two ended up in a plot to smuggle high-tech gear to the enemy.

    By Deirdra Funcheon

  • Westword

    Murder By Design

    In life and death, tattoo artist Kauri Tiyme made her mark.

    By Alan Prendergast

  • Village Voice

    My Brother the Slumlord

    Amy Neustein never could resist going public with her family dramas.

    By Elizabeth Dwoskin

  • Houston Press

    The Ghosts of Galveston

    A visit with the hurricane victims that a country forgot.

    By John Nova Lomax

Aqualung

Wednesday, June 15, at Gypsy Tea Room

By Mikael Wood

Published on June 09, 2005

Aqualung is a polite British fellow called Matthew Hales. Like many other polite British fellows influenced by but not terribly interested in sounding like Thom Yorke, Hales plays introspective pop-rock ballads seductive to students, wedding planners and people who shop at Banana Republic (but not Old Navy). His American debut, Strange and Beautiful (which compiles songs from Aqualung's previous imports), is full of carefully arranged wistfulness, and if it's not that strange, it's certainly beautiful. Opener Cary Brothers is the guy responsible for "Blue Eyes," from the Garden State soundtrack. He has a handful of other songs that sound like that, only not quite as good.