Alan Bennett wrote that being brought up in the provinces in the 40s and 50s "one learned early the valuable lesson that life is generally something that happens elsewhere".
The five young men from Oxford Town known as The Epstein are of another generation but their songs reflect on similar sentiments. The themes suggest that when it comes to seeking new paths in life, dreams and reality are often poles apart.
The focus of their sophomore album is that of seeking out fresh directions yet this striving for change is constantly undermined by the realisation that the well worn paths of the past cannot be easily forgotten.
You hear this expressed on two songs in particular.
Sophia Loren is built around a conversation with an Italian woman on an airplane. She tells of moving to America to marry and how she had never been back to her home town since she was 17. After almost half a century away she recalls "Nothing changes down in the old town, nothing changes beneath the trees, Sophia Loren passed by in a movie once, she was heading for St. Denis".
Ring On Her Finger is about a young woman who, you imagine, married too soon and now finds herself isolated with "a head full of ideas no one understands, a million places she's like to go".
Another obvious reason why the theme of moving on is significant for this band is that they had to overcome losing their rhythm section between this album and their debut The Last of the Charaguistas.
For Murmurations, keyboardist Sebastian Reynolds, bassist Humphey Astley and drummer Tommy Longfellow come to the rescue of founding members singer Olly Wills and lead guitarist Jon Berry.
The band's previous record is a decidedly home-grown folky affair. The new line up has decided to take their time perfecting a more expansive sound, spending 14 months in the studio.
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They also show a tentative shift to a more experimental sound on a short piano-based instrumental Between Dog And Wolf and an ambient textures of voice as instrument on the closing tune Into Daylight.
The banjo and fiddle are replaced by a more widescreen version of country rock. For instance, on a track like Hudson, where Wills sings of "the river of my mind, the feel is, mercifully, more My Morning Jacket than Mumford And Sons.
Nevertheless, this is still Americana infused with a very English sensibility. Calling Out Your Name and November are each about the dilemma and sadness involved in moving from a small town mentality towards something grander.
In Morning News and Another Band Has Gone the concerns are also close to home with worries respectively about an invasive big brother state and doubts about how many people are listening to these songs at all.
The single, and intended showstopper, I Held You Once is a classic slow build from voice and acoustic guitar intro to a rousing finale.
Enjoyable as this is, I would like to see this band take even bolder moves away from such song-based material and to build further upon the ambitious scope of this album.
The Epstein's website
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