Hope to Her opens with harmonica, and you’re ready for Springsteen to start crooning about New Jersey. Instead, there’s a careful voice, an almost back-of-the-throat reserved quality, reminiscent of Richard Thompson when he’s holding back, which opens up to crooning like Neil Young. Throw in some pedal steel guitar, countrified-snare, and now we’re in alt.Country land. Yet, Hope to Her is Thomas Denver Jonsson’s debut album. Jonsson hailing not from Colorado but rather from Sweden. There’s almost no hint of midnight sun, fjörds, or Volvos.
Thomas Denver Jonsson with backing band, the September Sunrise, create some beautiful Americana in this heartbreak of a breakup album. Uncut’s review namechecks Damien Jurado, a similarly European exploration of Americana with that same reserved quality. Thanks to Acuarela Discos, I’ve been listening to Jurado, Early Day Miners, and Spokane. Acuarela threw out the term “slowcore” to describe the plodding, country beats found in the music of these artists. “It is slow,” I thought, but core? As in having similarity to hardcore? I didn’t hear it.
Until I cranked it.
You’ve got to crank these melancholy, dirt road songs to really appreciate what makes them stand out from standard country ballads. There is a darker quality; there is a contained electricity beneath the acoustic amblings. Put it on as background music, and surely you’re going to miss this dimension.
When I cranked Jonsson, then I started to see how the ballads where Jonsson and the band hold back set you up for the rhythm to open up on the next track. Keep the volume too low, and you might miss it. “Pale” and “Jeanna” are back to back mournful cries that then yield to the upward moving, high tones of Fredrik Wilde’s pedal steel on “Mallard,” the stand out track of the album.
This is how an album is supposed to work on the listener. You’re going along, feeling this slow pulse of sadness, which sets up the next scene: tambourine-shaking, snare-driving beat with a great chorus and lines where Thomas breaks the pattern, speeds up his delivery and crams more words in. Without “Pale” and “Jeanna,” “Mallards” might just be a nice countrified-rock song, but here it revives the soul (albeit with the continued narrative of breaking up with Jeanna).
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So is it slowcore? Not sure I’d really use that term for Jonsson. He’s reserved; there’s ballads; but we’re heading down a country road, alternative as it may seem. Click here for my thoughts on bands that might be described as slowcore—Damien Jurado, Early Day Miners, and Spokane.
For now, take a cold winter night in a cabin in the woods. Start a fire in the fireplace. Keep just a couple of lamps on. Crank Thomas Denver Jonsson. Suck a beer. And then taste that country air and scorned love. Let that slow Americana grab you at the core, transporting you inside the music, inside the firelight, inside the pale amber lager hue, inside the heart, inside the sound that subtly comes up to puts its beat and bass and melody into your world.
Thanks to Kite Recordings and Thomas Denver Jonsson for their help. Hope to Her is now available through Miles of Music or Parasol. A UK/Ireland release is anticipated soon.
More reviews at musicspectrum.blogspot.com.
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