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Review: 'WHITFORD, HARRISON'
'Afraid of Nothing'   

-  Label: 'Screwdriver Records'
-  Genre: 'Folk' -  Release Date: '12th November 2021'

Our Rating:
Harrison Whitford is an LA-based multi-instrumentalist who has worked with Phoebe Bridgers and The National vocalist Matt Berninger. Although he has built his name as a guitarist, piano melodies underpin most tracks on this, his second album.

It follows on from his 2018 debut album ‘Afraid of Everything’ written between the ages of 17 and 21. That record catalogued self-doubts and gave the impression of an artist on the brink of cracking up as a couple of sample lyrics indicate: “Tonight I died again once more” (Both My Friends); “I’m desperate and blue” (Pair of Lungs).

The title of this release gives notice that his revised goal is to chase down the demons that plagued him in his formative years. Whitford says: “we have to discard who we think we are sometimes to move forward.” It was originally conceived as an EP but grew to LP proportions during lockdown.

He may be older and wiser but there’s plenty of evidence to show that he has not yet found tranquillity. From the comfort of a king-size bed in Secret Garden he confesses: “I wish I knew where I was” and sings of losing his mind in the title track.

There’s a cover of Neil Young’s Helpless but all the other songs are his own. In them he seems to be reflecting on the mysteries behind personal issues rather than unveiling eureka moments of clarity.

Primarily, he calmly addresses his uncertainties. One track is entitled simply I Don’t Know and of another song he says: “I’ve never been entirely sure what Meclizine was about. When I wrote it I was very interested in images of childhood and the concept of getting lost as a path of growth.”

A suicide bridge looms over Anyplace I Am but he seems resigned to doubts rather than being overwhelmed by them. As he sings on this track: “every day’s a moving target, I wish I had a better eye.”

It all hangs together through the meticulous attention devoted to the arrangements and the delicate, half whispered vocals which give the songs a magical sense of intimacy.   
  author: Martin Raybould

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WHITFORD, HARRISON - Afraid of Nothing