Richard Hawley: Truelove’s Gutter

DVDfever.co.uk – Richard Hawley: Truelove’s Gutter CD reviewElly Roberts reviews

Richard Hawley: Truelove’s GutterDistributed by
Mute Records

• Released: September 2009
• Rating: 8/10
• Vote and comment on this album:View Comments

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Steel man returns… mellower than ever. Less is more.

Sheffield’s Richard Hawley reckons Truelove’s Gutter, his sixth, is his best album. The title sounds like something by a heavy metal band, but as we all know, Hawley is very much Mr. Mellow personified, even more so this time around. This isn’t another Coles Corner by the way, which spawned some tasty singles like The Ocean, Just Like The Rain, Born Under A Bad Sign and the title track.

He believes he’s really pushed himself on this one, a collection of dark (and occasionally painful) songs inspired by a series of events around him.Again he’s used a local landmark for the title – Truelove’s Gutter – a place he discovered on manuscripts from the 18th century.

There have been two main inspirations for the songs – coming to terms with his father’s death a couple of years ago. And, purely by chance, a comment his mother made returning from the market having heard a guy playing a musical saw, like his father grandfather did.By definition this is a very reflective collection full of sumptuous songs that tug at the heartstrings.

It explores the idea of things that are broken, including people around him and their lives, drawing parallels with the fragile and fractured world we live in.Truth is, there are few songwriters who can deliver such wonderful songs, sung with a fabulously unique voice.

Instrumentation is much simpler compared to Coles Corner from September 2005. He’s introduced a couple of fascinating instruments – a crystal baschet or crystal organ (yes, me too) which creates a sound from oscillating glass cylinders invented in 1761, and a megabass waterphone which makes sounds similar to the haunting melodies of the Humpback Whale, sometimes called Whalephones.

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Truelove’s beginning is sombre and eerie – a slow, almost snail’s pace, with a filigree of birdsong floating above a drone.This a sort of deceptive prelude that soon leads to a fabulous mini-epic Open Up The Door.

Remorse Code is a harrowing observation of a drug user set some great music spanning a whopping nine minutes, including familiar twanging guitar synonymous with Hawley’s music.Don’t Get Hung Up In Your Soul is probably the sparsest song Hawley has ever written, gentle strumming, which allows that magnificent voice to be highlighted more than anything else here, with the crystal baschet adding gorgeous, if haunting, dressing.

After four minutes of spaceiness, Soldier On comes to a tour de force crescendo that has some bluesy guitar solo, then pulling back for a mellow finish.Hawley hits the target with a divine ballad – and lead-off single For Your Lover Give Some Time, released as a digital download on August 10. The use of the Red Skies string section, cello and violin solos and harpsichord turn this into arguably his best song ever.

For the last song Don’t You Cry, he throws in everything except the kitchen sink – waterphone, harpsichord, sleigh bells, Tibetan singing bowls, steel drum, lap steel, glockenspiel, and that musical saw, his grandfather would be proud of. This is a truly overwhelming song, the likes of which will probably never be matched.

The verdict – Wonderful.

Weblinks:richardhawley.co.uk /myspace.com/richardhawley (Audio clips and gigs)

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The full list of tracks included are :

1. As The Dawn Breaks
2. Open Up Your Door
3. Ashes On The Fire
4. Remorse Code
5. Don’t Get Hung Up In Your Soul
6. Soldier On
7. For Your Lover Give Some Time
8. Don’t You CryView the discussion thread.blog comments powered by Disqus= 0) {query += ‘url’ + i + ‘=’ + encodeURIComponent(links[i].href) + ‘&’;}}document.write(”);})();//]]]]>]]>

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