Declining Winter - Really Early, Really Late

by Adrian Janes

published: 30 / 8 / 2023

Declining Winter - Really Early, Really Late

Label: Home Assembly
Format: CD

intro

Tenth album from Yorkshire-rooted UK band The Declining Winter who, under aegis of Richard Adams, combine rock, folk, classical, electronica and jazz in beautiful musical mosaics.

Richard Adams first recorded as part of Hood, a band formed with his brother Chris, but since 2007 his energy has mainly been directed into a series of albums as The Declining Winter. Involving a dozen other musicians in all, it is not surprising that the patiently unfolding music that composes this album has taken five years to realise. It is good to report that the effort has not been wasted although words like effort seem inappropriate, so naturally do all the parts move together even when the music is at its most complex and multi-layered. ‘The Darkening Way’ opens the record with a typically simple, appealing acoustic guitar phrase and electronic drone. When it comes in, Adams’ voice is breathy and a little shy, and benefits from the reinforcement of a female singer. Joined in turn by affecting strings, the combination with the woman’s elevated voice makes for a beautiful passage that suggests Kate Bush. Just as with the intro, so the reverbed fade is gradual, unhurried. The interplay of two acoustic guitars lays the basis for ‘Song of the Moor Fire’. Although Adams’ voice is often hushed, here it is strangely muffled, almost as if to actualise Kevin Ayers’ ‘Song from The Bottom of a Well’, yet somehow he still conveys a feeling of anguish. Crisp, jazzy drums and a heartfelt sax complete a track that transfixes. The title track also has something of a jazz feel, with its light touch drumming and soulful sax coda. Unintelligible voices as if heard through a wall are suddenly replaced by delicate vocals as guitar and piano build in intensity, the kind of dramatic switch that recalls Bark Psychosis. Most of the tracks are long enough to have both substantial instrumental passages and some singing. ‘Yellow Fields’ stands out as both the sole instrumental (a blend of acoustic guitars with strings which soar and dip like a bird over those fields) and for its brevity. A half decade in the making suggests a quest for an elusive perfection, but the mutual sensitivity of the playing on ‘Project Row Houses’, a restraint where each player of guitar, bass, piano adds only the necessary notes and no more, makes for an especially exquisite closeness to that goal, only enhanced by the sweeping in of the strings, the organ overlay and the vocals with their touching Pink Floyd-like diffidence. Despite its grim title, ‘The Heart Beats Black’ is another engrossing song with the elements of keyboards, bass and voice treated in a different way to elsewhere. Here there are drawn-out chords, the bass ever-pulsing and the elusive vocals for once slightly more graspable, phrases like “It’s been so long”, “I’ve been so ashamed” tantalisingly suggestive. As with ‘Project Row Houses’ the musical interplay grows more entwined with the additions of trumpet, sax and guitar, but yet again this feels expressive of involved emotions rather than overloaded. Richard Adams is said to take inspiration from rural Yorkshire, so the rippling guitar and piano of ‘The Fruit of the Hours’ might evoke for some its tumbling waters. Though there seems to be an incongruous disenchantment in the flatly sung words (“Same thing every day”), the keening strings over the piano bear away such mundane reflections. The skilled layering of keyboards and bass almost make ‘How to Be Disillusioned’ a musical version of the fashionable ‘immersive experience’, so rich is it. Suddenly, highly rhythmic drums break in while keyboards and sax soar overhead, before a distorted chant comes in that is all but lost under the power of the drums. ‘Let These Words of Love Become the Lamps that Light Your Way’ sounds like a quotation, but doesn’t seem to be, though it has echoes in many religious traditions. There is an intriguing contrast between the stark piano, tremulous strings and sounds of wind and rain, and the comfort the words try to offer: “Don’t be scared/There’s hope left/And in the dark/Watch the lamp light/To help you through/The dark, the cold nights”. The album ends with this sentiment and an unsettling buzzing sound: there is warmth in The Declining Winter, but nothing cosy. Quietly spectacular, almost frustratingly modest in appearance (even the credits are in small print, with no indication of who plays what), this album should be heard in any season, at any time.

Track Listing:-

1 The Darkening Way
2 Song Of The Moor Fire
3 Really Early, Really Late
4 Yellow Fields
5 Project Row Houses
6 This Heart Beats Black
7 The Fruit Of The Hours
8 How To Be Disillusioned
9 Let These Words Of Love Become The Lamps That Light Your Way

Band Links:-

https://www.thedecliningwinter.com/
https://www.facebook.com/thedecliningwinter
https://twitter.com/DecliningWinter

Play in YouTube:-

Have a Listen:-

interviews

Interview (2023)

Adrian Janes talks to Yorkshire-based musician Richard Adams about his band The Declining Winter's first album in five years, 'Really Early, Really Late'.