Where to begin?
1. I'm sorry it's taken me this long to start back up again. I had a fair bit on the metaphorical plate what with exams and novels clamouring for my attention, but I'm back now, so all's well, I suppose.
2. I promised a while back that I'd review this, and I got the email that this was coming out about two months ago. It got lost in the wilds of my inbox, and just got dug back out again.
3. THANK YOU for not abandoning me! YOU'RE ALL EPIC *virtual hug*
4. I've been writing a lot recently, but my reviewing is very rusty. Forgive me? You will? Here, have a cookie.
AOTS: The Hale and Hearty, Heyward Howkins (late of more bands than you can shake a guitar at, including The Trouble With Sweeney.)
It seems this sound has been growing of late, the ocean-crossing mash of Nick Drake and Devendra Banhart. British melancholia basking in the American sun. Waist High Or Dry has the gentle glassiness of coastal shimmer-folk, The Raucous Calls of Morning the bass-y shadows of "traditional" British indie covered in rainclouds. It has echoes of a Bon Iver channelling Mumford and Sons - or possibly the reverse. The Live Oak slows down, more Nick Drake than anything else on the album. The thudding notes ground the otherwise ethereal nature of the track, giving the listener a careful foothold. Plume and Orange kicks the speed and instrumentation up again - it seems the slower, softer stuff isn't really at home - horns, keyboards, a computerised veil that doesn't fit as well as it could. There's a touch more country in Cocaine Bill than might be expected, and it flows beautifully. It has a warmth that some of the songs lack, a buoyancy that's strangely Josh Pyke-ish. The horns and keyboards are back, the former rich, the latter as cold as rain. It's a very good album, if a little unsure of itself.
7/10
Moll
