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What better way to kick off the new year than a whole month’s worth of songs by this humble blogger’s favourite English troubadour, Mr Darren of Hayman.  This time last year, he was just setting out on a valiant quest: to write, create and record a new track each and every day during January, which you can still review over on the blog.  Accompanied by the talents of friends and artists alike, January Songs is a 31 gun salute to endeavour and to new years resolutions.  He’ll even be performing them all in a series of gigs this month so if you’re lucky enough to be in England, be sure to see it.

Now seems to be the appropriate time to be sharing this record, given its title.  The echo of the summer is heard louder than the echo of Sin Fang’s last album, Clangour, a delightfully scatty collection of ideas.  This one is more focused, more of an album and more folky.   

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 21 March 2011

The Rip Tide is an excellent album that, much like the rest of Zach Condon’s discography is something of a slow burn (whilst being characteristically recognisable).  Not sure why it took so long to get round to it here but with tracks like East Harlem and the title track, it’s strong enough to comfortably slot into the end of year lists.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 30 August 2011

I Want That You Are Always Happy is the full debut album of Australian septet, The Middle East.  It follows their sumptuous EP (cleverly titled The Recordings of the Middle East) from last year and follows that up with more downbeat folk that doesn’t sound dissimilar from what the blender would sound like if you threw a Fleet Foxes CD in there with a Low Anthem record and a Jet minidisc.  Just kidding about the Jet (ah, the fate of poor Australian bands) so maybe replace that with some barley.  Yes, that’d go quite nicely.  Much like this album.  Won’t hit the end of year top 25 but it’s a pleasant enough record.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 

The inimitable Laura Marling’s third album was once again a marked progression from her previous work and surely solidifies her position not only as one of England’s brightest young talents in indie/folk but one her best songwriters too.  

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 12 Sep 2011

The King Is Dead… Long Live The King!  A fitting companion piece to the Decemberists fine album from all the way back in January.  ’twas so long ago this record almost sounds vintage now.  So old that it’s cool again.  Well okay, it’s actually one of the few records of 2011 that’s stuck all the way through the year so having a little fill-up on that is more than welcome.  Tracks like Row Jimmy and E. Watson (which is not about the Harry Potter starlet but a lawless cane sugar plantation owner called Edgar Watson) would’ve fit perfectly on The King Is Dead were it not for their very selective editing. So long live the Decemberists…

Vetiver, led by Andy Cabic, have just realised their best album since 2008’s Thing of the Past.  Sounding very much like the soft rock of the 70s but with an alt.country twang that keeps things interesting, The Errant Charm is perfect road trip music for a journey along the west coast of America.  Provided its lazy summer haze doesn’t encourage you to drift off into a dream state behind the wheel that is…

I’m embarrassed to say that I had to wait for the Mercury Award nominees to be reminded to post about this one.  Having first listened to this album whilst in the trance of an existential gaze through a window with rain beating down upon the streets, it felt like the perfect accompaniment.  Appropriating a sound that takes one far away - to a lonely fishing island in the North of Scotland perhaps - and yet seeming apt for the moment is a difficult trick to pull but the combination of prolific Fife-native King Creosote and ambient experimentalist Jon Hopkins pleasantly surprises with its warmth.  A contemplative masterpiece, it’s a beautiful, slow soundtrack to an art-house film you’re yet to see and a life you’re yet to live through.  

Slip in the CD, (or just click on the link above) and a warm blanket of indie folk seems to grow around you.  The first few songs are warm and thoughtful, yet awakening.  Cats And Dogs, particularly, starts the record with a clean bang.  However, in this writer’s opinion, the latter songs start to drift from the mark slightly and the energy seems to dull throughout the record. It’s not that they’re bad or boring, they just seem to facilitate disengagement with the record.  The band is clearly talented and highly capable - I’m curious for what’s next.

As the bio reads, Liam describes this record as, “Nothing over-intellectualized or technically flashy. Songs that connected with everyday listeners who simply appreciate tunes that trigger tapping feet or a lump in the throat.”  … which is an admirably self-aware description.  These are some solid, mainstream indie rock tunes. They sound almost familiar in the way that seeing a stranger who looks like someone you know makes you like them immediately.  The record may not be unusual or particularly new, but it is well-crafted, catchy and melodic - and what more can you ask for, really?  Good for a commute, a boogie at a summer music festival or a personal cocoon of thoughtfulness via headphones on a stroll around town.

Chilling, sweet, real and poetic as always, Emmy the Great’s second full length album, Virtue, brings the indie folk heat. Building on First Love, this is broader, more constructed.  I once read Emma say that if everything that she wrote about in her songs happened to her, she’d be pretty screwed up, but that the emotions are real.   That represents her songs fairly well - real emotion, real issues, but told slightly distanced as stories.   For this second full album, Emmy takes this one step further to include age-old themes from fairy tales, myths and the lives of saints, drawing inspiration from lives and translating to music.  Recorded the summer after an ended engagement and her fiances conversion to Christianity, it carries some hefty personal weight as well.  

Not only did they launch this album with a fancy SoundCloud-powered stream premiere and a great Spotify playlist of their influences, this entire album was developed by the band working collaboratively online. It’s fair to say Gomez have gone digital. And with most of the band also acting as songwriters, it makes sense that they can create ideas in isolation with the polishing touches added over email and in the studio at the final moment. It’s a concept that doesn’t really weaken the quality of the sound - ever since their Mercury award winning debut they’ve been pretty solid across 7 studio albums. Whatever’s On Your Mind is a good addition to their cataologue with optimistic opener Options ranking as one of their best tracks in a while. However, the back half of the album struggles to maintain the quality somewhat. It’s easy to imagine that Gomez would’ve faded away over the years but here they are still making enjoyable records, 15 years later. Bring It On…

This review is part of English week on HotSpotMusic. See ‘em all ‘ere.

Boots Met My Face is nothing but an honest album.  Endearingly earnest, it can go from singalong choruses that are bold and exuberant to moments that are mellow and downtrodden within the course of a single song.  And the pattern continues throughout the album.  It’s that ebb and flow that drives Admiral Fallow who, with multiple vocalists and more instruments than you’ll hear on your run of the mill folk album, want to create and tell an engaging story.  You might say it’s too morose and that betrays the quality of the arrangements and songwriting but here those contrasts work - just when you’re expecting a downpour comes another turn of sunshine. It’s a characteristically Scottish record, produced by former Delgado Paul Savage, that’s one of the better ones to cross Hadrian’s Wall in a while.

Boldly named after Margaret Atwood’s post-apocalyptic romance, the nine-member band plays a memorable folk/acoustic/experimental/indie rock/pop, as it were.  The songs are superbly surprising combinations; soft tension, halting, pivoting music released in spurts of movement.  The cello and violin play unique characters rather than push themselves into too traditional of roles, completing the picture with successive layers of vocals, beats and color.