[rating=9.00]
When Ben Howard surged onto the global scene with debut album Every Kingdom, there seemed nothing particularly remarkable about him. Oh sure, his sudden fame was remarkable and a Mercury Prize nomination is nothing to be sniffed at, but here was a young man with a very normal name, seemingly riding the tsunami of other normal young men writing lovely folk-pop songs that had broken over the world. Teenage girls swooned hysterically, record sales soared, stadiums were filled and Howard was – perhaps unfairly – neatly placed into the rather large niche occupied by the likes of Ed Sheeran, Mumford & Sons and their nu-folk army storming around the globe; presumed to soon be forgotten.
The hype – particularly around the radio-friendly singles – sadly glossed over the musicianship on display, something Howard rather consciously subverted with follow-up I Forget Where We Were. “The more attention I got, the less I wanted it”, he told the Evening Standard prior to the record’s release, and it showed. Darker, more introspective and “definitely not for teenagers”, it was an expansive sonic sprawl that, while a commercial success and received well by critics, gently pushed away a demographic of fans Howard clearly didn’t want.
Four years later and if that album was a gentle push, Noonday Dream is Howard turning his back. Well and truly walking the overgrown trails of self-discovery, this is a thoughtful record and one that stakes out Howard’s ever-maturing territory as an artist. His gift for melody remains, but the shift away from more conventional singalongs ready-made for the radio toward lingering and mournful mood pieces that categorized I Forget Where We Were is – if not quite fully realized – certainly solidified here. Drawing more from ambient influences, he effectively melds his talent for finger-picked motifs and folk melodies with subtle atmospheric soundscapes. Frankly, it’s beautiful.
Opener ‘Nica Libres at Dusk’ imbues its hushed and gently building momentum with singular distant, echoing guitar cries; mimicking the calls of the perpetually soaring eagles of its lyrics. It sets the tone early for an album that savors these techniques in its journey of sadness and rumination. Howard’s bedroom acoustic work still features prominently, notably on ‘Someone at the Doorway’ and ‘There’s Your Man’, but these are generally longer, more intricate and less accessible tracks – and crucially all the better for it. ‘What the Moon Does’ resembles lighter post-rock artists like Explosions in the Sky far more than any indie-folk types with its reverb-heavy shifting guitar lines and chiming inflections while the gorgeous two movements of ‘A Boat to an Island’ boasts ambient undercurrents that wouldn’t feel out of place on a Hammock or Helios record.
He’s improved as a lyricist too. The poignancy in proximity to nature still dominates his mind, but it’s less rolling out deliberately vague wordplay or truisms about universal love and strong hearts; and more soft and candid meditations on the sorrow of the natural order the world of men has steadily cut itself off from. ‘Towing the Line’ is an early highlight. Seemingly written from the table of an unbearable social gathering, it slowly and gracefully reveals its teeth as Howard muses “why can’t you be like the blackbird and sing…down here I crow for you, you crow for me.” ‘What the Moon Does’ finds him “floating through memory on the broken wings of a butterfly”, sadness healed by “beautiful thoughts, like how the river bends in a wild wood creek”. While on closer ‘Murmurations’ he lays it out for us, “it’s so peaceful here, no one to fuck it up.”
It’s a record that carves a small window into a man steadily maturing. If ideas of togetherness, love and the simplicity of nature felt pure and idealized in his early work; they remain here, but overlaid with the dusky shadow of experience. Howard is a man who has tasted the insincere side of artificial fame and his response has been to withdraw – subsequent records tracing that journey. “Love is in the early mornings, in the shadows under the trees; not in the cuckolded ashes floating down from the rookery,” he mulls on ‘Towing the Line’, the love still there but not as clear as it once was. Noonday Dream is anticipated and will no doubt do well, but hopefully Howard receives the recognition he deserves for making it his own, and exquisite at that.
