This is Richard Warren's fourth solo album and is a Solo album in the total sense of him playing all the instruments producing it and writing all the songs for it. The album is a little bit more upbeat than the last of his solo albums that I heard, that's not a bad thing at all.
The album opens with Only Always a gentle start that has some cool phased guitars and vocals a really nice guitar solo in it as well as some very minimal lyrics that make it feel almost shoegazey but with slightly frazzled edges as the guitar comes back to bring an emotive edge to it.
Last Breath has some nice restrained piano and drums as Richard sings an ode to the partner that he'd give his last breath for. It's heartfelt and beautifully accented as he makes plain how much he loves his partner.
Simplify sounds a bit like Richard Hawley at his most sparse and it a nice plea for a simple life where he doesn't cause his partner any more pain. Silvertown opens with a simple drum machine pattern before the guitars waft in like the smell Tate and Lyles refinery in Silvertown had in the late 70's and this would be a perfect soundtrack for a film of someone driving through Silvertown back then just as the docks were closing and it was becoming an industrial wasteland before it's re-birth.
No Way Back is a song of regret for the things he needs forgiveness for over a gentle country blues as he wants to make sure he feels happy about the life he's led and hopefully his babe will give him the redemption he seeks.
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Safekeeping is another nice slow rumination on the nature of Love how all his money seems to have fallen through a hole in his pocket, but will it take his happiness with it, this is slow and sparse and really rather beautiful with it.
Disentangled opens with a bass drum and sparse percussion as the guitar fills in the detail without sounding too tangled up in anything just making sure to sound cool for walking by the edge of a forest or something similar.
Mystery Land sounds like a re-working of a late 50's torch song into a lazy dark blues hoping to change his life or yours and to make things better again. The Deepest Well may well be the yearning and loneliness within this gentle and effective song.
The album closes with Withered Tree as his love is left dying on the vine of gently strummed guitar and an almost military style snare drum playing that's laid back and intriguing and like the rest of the album well worth hearing several times over.
Find out more at www.hudsonrecords.co.uk www.facebook.com/RWarrenMusic
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