Reichenbach Falls - The Traitor Shore

  by John Clarkson

published: 8 / 10 / 2015

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Review

On opening impressions, it seems that Abe Davies and his Oxford-formed collective Reichenbach Falls are taking off with their second album, ‘The Traitor Shore’, from exactly where their first album, the excellent ‘Reports of Snow’, left off when it came out two years ago. ‘Reports of Snow’ was a brooding, taut collection of break-up songs, and ‘Basket of Bones’, the first song on ‘The Traitor Shore’, is just that, another brooding, taut break-up song, sparse and hazy and downbeat in tone and topped by Davies’ evocatively melancholic vocals. “Oh, how I have waited for your phone call,” sings Davies, before ‘Basket of Bones’ abruptly cuts out. One could hardly blame Davies having found a successful format for his songwriting for wanting to produce more of the same, but then ‘The Traitor Shore’ starts to rock out... . ‘The English Rose’, which follows ‘Basket of Bones’, is a brisk and melodic, foot-stomping country pop number, all jangling guitars and rattles of piano, which tells about the sharp decline of a relationship after a promising start. ‘The Departure Lounge’, which comes next is even breezier still, a soaring, upbeat anthem, more indie rock than Americana, again a break-up song but this time it is written for a friend going through agony after a relationship breakdown. Davies has always had the ability to pack a punch with his song writing and to sum up whole situations well, none more so than with ‘Orphans’, ‘Buses’ and ‘Branches’, three songs in the second half of the album which tell of the sudden and premature death of a friend’s sister and its aftermath. When he sings in the middle track, the gently harmonic ‘Buses’, “there will be summer barbecues out here again and good times too”, he captures in one line the awful truth after someone close dies that things can never be the same, but also, while avoiding the trappings of cliché, that life does move on, that it can get better again. The penultimate track is 'Hey Migrator', another flowing, exuberant number. And lastly there is 'Canada', which brings the album full circle. A song about displacement, it finds Davies, whose father is Canadian and mother English, reflecting on his childhood and adolescence which was spent in both countries. "It would be a miracle to keep me there," he whispers about Canada. Based simply around a softly shimmering keyboard line and with Davies' acoustic guitar floating over the top, it is as sparse as the opening track and drifts the album to a haunting close. 'The Traitor Shore' finds Abe Davies, while acknowledging his band's past, pushing Reichenbach Falls on to both new musical and lyrical heights. It is a record that is as gripping as it is exceptional.

Track Listing:-

1 Basket of Bones
2 English Rose
3 The Departure Lounge
4 Magic
5 Outclassed
6 Orphans
7 Buses
8 Branches
9 Hey Migrator
10 Canada

Band Links:-

https://twitter.com/rbachfalls
http://www.reichenbachfallsband.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ReichenbachFa
https://reichenbachfalls.bandcamp.com/