release date: Mar. 18, 2016
format: cd (AATTCD08)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,56]
producer: self-produced
label: AATT - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Your Guess" - 2. "Hawksmoor & the Savage" (4 / 5) - 3. "Winter Sea" - 4. "Seasons & the Storms" - 5. "The Sleepers" - 6. "Bridges" - 10. "The Skeins of Love"
14th studio album by And Also the Trees is yet another self-released album. The cover info only mentions recording, mastering, and mixing credits - Justin Jones (of the band) and Matthew Devenish recorded the album [the latter also handled mixing]. The band formed some 38 years ago - only two members remain from the original line-up, the brothers Jones, vocalist Simon Huw and guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Justin. On this the two form a quartet with bassist Ian Jenkins and drummer Paul Hill, which means that keyboardist Emer Brizzolara apparently has left the band since the predecessor Hunter Not the Hunted from 2012.
The style is unchanged from the 2012 release, which implies quiet somber alt. rock with focus on narration, and I like it. In fact, I think it's the best album by the band in some 30 years reaching back to 1989 and Farewell to the Shade. I really think this band has evolved quite nicely over the decades. After the strong start in the '80s with strong bonds to the gothic rock of post-punk they took a long time in finding the expression, at times mixing with this and that, and then in the new millennium they sort of found their sound. They always had that particular strong relation to ancient British prose and poetry. And in the past it sometimes took an almost theatrical biased path too strongly, and at times with excessive use of strong dynamics. Now, the gloomy narration remains, underlined by Simon Jones' dark vocal and a like-wise dark and baroque instrumentation - but what sounded forced in the past with string arrangements and horns has now turned into beauty because of a wiser approach with a more scarce instrumentation. The music blends and supports the stories, which are half prose and half poetry. It truly deserves more attention.
Recommended.
