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| Track list: 1. Understand My Heart 2. Am I Just a Man 3. The Letter 4. Yesterday 5. Lost & Found 6. I Let Her In 7. Stress Position 8. All Come Down 9. Boys Outside 10. Hound on My Heel Running time: 40 minutes Released: 2010 |
Blimey, is this really 6 years old? Time flies. I really liked this album when it was released but have listened to it a lot less frequently of late. Looking forward to this one.
Mason's multiple personalities have surfaced before on this blog (see Black Gold), but this effort apparently followed a serious depressive episode, which might be one of the reasons I connected with it. It has many, many echoes of The Beta Band, ditches the hardest edges of electro from Black Affair, and instead crafts very approachable songs. Am I Just a Man is a pretty perfect example of this - radio friendly rhythm, poppy tones, but with a darkness lurking in the bass. It fades in influence compared to the rather uplifting vocal and the overall message of the song is a pretty positive one despite the topic. Its a song I identify with on a couple of levels.
I missed out on doing this yesterday - time vanished on me - and somehow I have lost an hour or so this morning too. My week off is almost over, just the regular weekend to go now. The Letter continues the dark and light theme. This drops the electronica for percussion and strings and a more subdued tone. The vocal is muted, regretful, with a crescendo of support in the chorus. Its a break up song, and could be accused of being a little bit mopey except for the strings which impart a roundness to the sound that suggests that its not being seen as the end of the world. I have always liked a little dark undertone, particularly when it has something to contrast. The first four tracks all see Mason's vocal as insubstantial, soft and floating over the soundscapes he has created for them. They feel light in contrast to the lurking threats implicit in the construction of that support. The light mostly wins out. Yesterday is the weakest track so far, the blocky nature of the call/response in the composition feeling a bit... tacky.
Lost & Found was always a favourite, though I never clocked just quite how black the lyrics were. Blackness is everywhere here - from the album art which had no identifying content (I seem to recall that the back of the jewel case was similarly plain, but white) to the themes to the monsters lurking in threatening aural space. Again the chorus cuts through this though - the keys and that almost ethereal vocal provide a contrast. The light touch on the singing is a high point, exposing a little vulnerability and a voice that has a lived in quality - we'll see later when it is not quite so softly applied, I think.
I Let Her In strips away the percussive base that has supported most of the tracks. A guitar melody - simple and looping - is the only support for that almost disembodied voice until a roiling darkness swirls and rises from beneath in a subtle soundtrack-like way. It works better than I remember. We then hit Stress Position which I recall as the weakest track on the disc. This is back to full electro beat; its just a little dull. I thought Mason's voice was applied more forcefully on this track, and I suppose it has a little more body, a breathiness to the delivery, but not a harder edge which is what I misremembered. Actually the whole track is just toned down from my recollection of it, and it feels a little empty, all over the place and bland as a result.
Ethereal Mason is back for All Come Down, a tune which has an awful lot of empty space, like a gas expanding to fill a container at very low pressure. The composition is very sparse. There's a vocal backing, a medium paced rhythm and, until we hit a crescendo that is about it. When it does rise, there is a harmonic effect, a ringing that seems to help the sound expand more. My ear is not sure which thread to follow even though there aren't that many separate strands here. It feels like the song has built a sphere of noise around me and I am cocooned until the point a long fade-out begins. We then get the title track, which has a nice acoustic guitar riff carrying it, but lyrically it wavers a bit; it seems to be Mason drawing a line between his present and his past - the whole album in a nutshell. I have to say tough that whilst that riff is soft and soothing, the track as a whole is... lacking something.
My favourite track on this disc was always the last one; Hound on My Heel - the title says it all. The pacing of the track, the rhythm, the hushed delivery of the lyrics, the slow build of the support. The contrast in the chorus, the threat in the subject matter. It all hangs together in a way that has an immediate appeal to me. There is darkness here, but it is implicitly behind, not ahead, and the keys which lend the light are the dominant theme by the end. As it closes, I don't think the album holds up as well as I would have liked, but the strong finish has me smiling at the end anyway. Its not bad at all, just a little flat in places. I have a less visceral connection to it these days too, which probably explains the distancing.
Mason's multiple personalities have surfaced before on this blog (see Black Gold), but this effort apparently followed a serious depressive episode, which might be one of the reasons I connected with it. It has many, many echoes of The Beta Band, ditches the hardest edges of electro from Black Affair, and instead crafts very approachable songs. Am I Just a Man is a pretty perfect example of this - radio friendly rhythm, poppy tones, but with a darkness lurking in the bass. It fades in influence compared to the rather uplifting vocal and the overall message of the song is a pretty positive one despite the topic. Its a song I identify with on a couple of levels.
I missed out on doing this yesterday - time vanished on me - and somehow I have lost an hour or so this morning too. My week off is almost over, just the regular weekend to go now. The Letter continues the dark and light theme. This drops the electronica for percussion and strings and a more subdued tone. The vocal is muted, regretful, with a crescendo of support in the chorus. Its a break up song, and could be accused of being a little bit mopey except for the strings which impart a roundness to the sound that suggests that its not being seen as the end of the world. I have always liked a little dark undertone, particularly when it has something to contrast. The first four tracks all see Mason's vocal as insubstantial, soft and floating over the soundscapes he has created for them. They feel light in contrast to the lurking threats implicit in the construction of that support. The light mostly wins out. Yesterday is the weakest track so far, the blocky nature of the call/response in the composition feeling a bit... tacky.
Lost & Found was always a favourite, though I never clocked just quite how black the lyrics were. Blackness is everywhere here - from the album art which had no identifying content (I seem to recall that the back of the jewel case was similarly plain, but white) to the themes to the monsters lurking in threatening aural space. Again the chorus cuts through this though - the keys and that almost ethereal vocal provide a contrast. The light touch on the singing is a high point, exposing a little vulnerability and a voice that has a lived in quality - we'll see later when it is not quite so softly applied, I think.
I Let Her In strips away the percussive base that has supported most of the tracks. A guitar melody - simple and looping - is the only support for that almost disembodied voice until a roiling darkness swirls and rises from beneath in a subtle soundtrack-like way. It works better than I remember. We then hit Stress Position which I recall as the weakest track on the disc. This is back to full electro beat; its just a little dull. I thought Mason's voice was applied more forcefully on this track, and I suppose it has a little more body, a breathiness to the delivery, but not a harder edge which is what I misremembered. Actually the whole track is just toned down from my recollection of it, and it feels a little empty, all over the place and bland as a result.
Ethereal Mason is back for All Come Down, a tune which has an awful lot of empty space, like a gas expanding to fill a container at very low pressure. The composition is very sparse. There's a vocal backing, a medium paced rhythm and, until we hit a crescendo that is about it. When it does rise, there is a harmonic effect, a ringing that seems to help the sound expand more. My ear is not sure which thread to follow even though there aren't that many separate strands here. It feels like the song has built a sphere of noise around me and I am cocooned until the point a long fade-out begins. We then get the title track, which has a nice acoustic guitar riff carrying it, but lyrically it wavers a bit; it seems to be Mason drawing a line between his present and his past - the whole album in a nutshell. I have to say tough that whilst that riff is soft and soothing, the track as a whole is... lacking something.
My favourite track on this disc was always the last one; Hound on My Heel - the title says it all. The pacing of the track, the rhythm, the hushed delivery of the lyrics, the slow build of the support. The contrast in the chorus, the threat in the subject matter. It all hangs together in a way that has an immediate appeal to me. There is darkness here, but it is implicitly behind, not ahead, and the keys which lend the light are the dominant theme by the end. As it closes, I don't think the album holds up as well as I would have liked, but the strong finish has me smiling at the end anyway. Its not bad at all, just a little flat in places. I have a less visceral connection to it these days too, which probably explains the distancing.
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