Album Review

Gravenhurst – The Western Lands

• 17th Oct 2007

Bovine’s artist of choice

Gravenhurst is one of the best bands to be backed by the Sonic Cathedral scene and were snapped up by Warp in 2004 after releasing their first two albums on their own label Silent Age. Here on their third album they are eating away the boundaries of the folk revival and washing them down with some streaming hot shoegaze.

Immediately, the album cover strikes you as something worth taking notice of. Like one of the greats ‘Live from Abbey Road’, hazy black and white studio shots and, handily, a tracklist on the front cover. This could of course be devious marketing to lure you into something that promises to be so good the cows want it back but reveals only an over processed, semi-skimmed white coloured water. Luckily, Gravenhurst’s album is a masterful, beautifully crafted achievement worthy of it’s cover. ‘The Western Lands’ is a soaring journey through pine forests, locked rooms, crowded cities and in and out of tortured souls. It tells tales of loss, regret and resignation and searching for something just out of grasp. Strong folk roots run throughout as dark themes are explored through beautiful dipping and rising melancholic melody.

It is hard to pick stand out tracks when this album is best enjoyed the good old fashioned way, start to finish as a body of work. That said, it’s hard not to keep skipping back to the the first single, the driving Grinderman style monster that is ‘Hollow Men’, a repeated buzz slide riff that contrasts with the gently delivered vocals. ‘Song Among the Pine’ invites us into the world and possibly the last moments of an outlaw hiding in the woods as he waits his imminent discovery. Definitely one for Nick Drake fans. ‘Trust’ is one of the best break up songs I’ve heard, it rolls along both bitter and resigned to the pain: ‘She will suck you in, she will f**k you up, she will throw you away’…a sitar effect guitar adding just enough sweetness to carry you through without wanting to give up the ghost. One for the folk purists, ‘Farewell, Farewell’ though arranged here by Gravenhurst was written by Richard Thompson, solo performer and once member of legendary folk group Fairport Convention. The album’s title track ‘The Western Lands’ is a cinematic 4 minute instrumental of modern dark Americana, Sergio Leonie interpreted by Pavement perhaps. It conjures a flee to Mexico, with all the desert and neon-covered truck stops along the way, indie US film soundtrack royalties await.

The Oscar Wilde quote on the albums inlay: ‘Give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth’ sums up the make up of band very well. None of the photos show clearly Nick Talbot, the man behind Gravenhurst, who by means of the popular trick of using a band name to disguise what is essentially a solo artist. Drums are played an arranged by Dave Collingwood, but Talbot writes, performs, engineers and produces. This shows itself in the music, which has a clarity and beautiful simplicity that runs through all tracks, a cohesion achieved best through the vision of one artist. Highly recommended.