- Label: 'Think Like A Key Music'
- Genre: 'Pop'
- Release Date: '14.2.25.'- Catalogue No: 'TLAK 1193'
Our Rating:
Almost as if to celebrate his 50 years in the business and since the release of Kid In A Big World his debut album in 1975 John Howard is back with For Those That Wander By a rather elegiacally poetic album built around John's piano and accompanying orchestration as the setting for the poems and stories he wrote in collaboration with Robert Cochrane.
The album opens with Losing Myself In Others a sad piano led rumination on the horror of dying on a foreign battlefield lost forever in the muck and mire, moving on to remember a friend who hung himself in London, slowly evoking memories of those lost in earlier times, by the time the strings swell and the choir comes in you will be tear stained wallowing in pity.
Dead At The Scene is a gorgeous overly orchestrated vignette for that awful scene you appeared at, can the sadness be so full of poignancy.
The Man Who Was America follows a steady brush stroke to paint the picture of someone wrapped up on Heroin and speed, this builds going in odd directions.
Return Postcards has a smoky French edge to the music this is almost swathed in Gauloise smoke for the melancholic tale of the funny, pertinent or plain mystifying things you find written on postcards, a window into a moment in time, it makes me think of all the wonderful old family postcards I've inherited and the cards I've kept myself over the years, sadly younger generations may never share in this joy.
Casati's Tears has a baroque classical opening drawing us into the tale of the wickedness and indulgence is that make those Tears so specific.
A Scant Importance brings back to the fore the lies and betrayal, the heartbreak and despair couched in lush strings, a slow piano diminution helping to cover the holes in your existence caused by all the sorrow making you tremble seeking your revenge.
No Glitter In Revenge makes clear that if you want to seek revenge for all that pain then no glitter can be involved, the music shifts through centuries of keyboard styles, with a real beauty to the music allowing the lyrics to startle all the more.
The album closes with the title song For Those That Wander By a slow lament for the love you wish was still as vital as it once was, wistful poignant slightly forlorn and like the album in full utterly beautiful.
Find out more at https://www.thinklikeakey.com/release/479260-john-howard-for-those-that-wander-by https://www.facebook.com/johnhowardsingersongwriter https://kidinabigworld.co.uk/
