There isn’t a killer jaw dropping song as much as dotted liberally throughout Thought You Knew. Nevertheless the sensuous poetic momentousness of ‘Skin’ definitely scales the summit of this new one.
Austere in its solemnity, there is a layered quasi electronica setting to the spoken word monologue of ‘(interlude)’ that is interesting but not amazingly remarkable beyond the mood and dawn-like sense of wonder it successfully sets.
Dave Hamblett on drums opens up a bit on ‘Host’. Nevertheless voice dominates even though there’s a beyondness to the work you can’t really quantify. It’s a hinterland when a song becomes a poem but is neither somehow given the way deep philosophy adds the weight of dark introspection.
The highly liminal Kinsella lyrics are unrelentingly plangent and there’s a doleful, even bleak, intensity to the work. It made me think of some of the power of the poetry of Eavan Boland and the late Paul Durcan in their different ways.
Chris Hyson’s keys on ‘forest_bathing’ sets things up well. Its Satie-esque bathos is another well gathered passage to return to often. But Heartstrings needs more impact. Josh Arcoleo’s whispery sax makes its presence felt on the chugging ‘For You’. His highly communicative sound could have been made a bit more of elsewhere.
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