Elliott Brood call their music Death Country - dark, gritty folk music built around whiskey-drenched vocals and lyrics evoking images of love, loss and murder. In their soul-thumping bluegrass songs, banjo keeps time to a strange and chunky angular stomp, with vicious Kentucky-hardcore acoustic guitar and sombre, achingly confessional vocal harmonies. The Toronto-based trio's six-song debut EP Tin Type resembles an old-time photo album. You'll love it if you're a fan of The Handsome Family, Johnny Dowd, Jon-Rae and the River, or The FemBots. And for all the brooding and sadness in Elliott Brood's music, their album, Ambassador, offers a glimmer of hope over the horizon, or at least the promise of redemption. This band isn't marketing gloom for its own sake, but offering its own take on a world where the light must struggle very hard to shine. The band released the critically acclaimed Mountain Meadows in 2008.