Dan Haywood:
Dapple:
Southern Bird:
Out 4th November:
★★★1/2
So, you're an ornithologist, a songwriter, you live in Lancashire and have a penchant for setting up camp in remote Scottish landscapes at snore-o-clock - whatcha gonna do? Why you'll cook up a follow-up to your previous album that featured all of the above and more.
Dan Haywood's last album, 'Dan Haywood's New Hawks', was a personal collection of gambolling rustic songs based on the idyllic solitude of Sutherland and five years in the making. Here, taking a bit less time (and certainly less to play it - ten vignettes as opposed to thirty-plus), the wonderfully-christened 'Dapple' sees Haywood in intimate, acoustic and almost rambling mode.
Possessed of a voice that reminds me of Pearls Before Swine's Tom Rapp, the Lancastrian wields a mighty sword of observational poetry and simple strum and jangle that by turns sounds unfinished yet complete. Here's what I mean - there are a clutch of songs that barely reach two minutes and some that extend beyond three. The shorter ones, such as the charming 'The Apple Tree', which is perhaps the first (and only) example of scrump-step, just feel like they should, y'know, stick around for another sip and a proper warm by the fire. The same applies to 'A Trout' and the elegiac 'In The Willows'.
Of the fuller efforts, I'd have to doff my cap at Haywood for writing the album's closer, 'Made For The May' - it is utterly handsome, a folk-inspired dandy, a squire for all seasons and just a bit good. He does it again on 'Suspicious Farms', a title that conjures up a Midsomer Murders plot though thankfully, the music contains less in the way of murder and hammy acting and more in the way of harmonium and a gently eddying tale of sentinels, wild flowers and robbery amongst birds.
All of which will either have you running for the hills (hater) or for the repeat button (lover) - I'm in the second camp. I just wish there was a bit more to savour, as it's all over in under 25 minutes.
Dapple:
Southern Bird:
Out 4th November:
★★★1/2
Dan Haywood's last album, 'Dan Haywood's New Hawks', was a personal collection of gambolling rustic songs based on the idyllic solitude of Sutherland and five years in the making. Here, taking a bit less time (and certainly less to play it - ten vignettes as opposed to thirty-plus), the wonderfully-christened 'Dapple' sees Haywood in intimate, acoustic and almost rambling mode.
Possessed of a voice that reminds me of Pearls Before Swine's Tom Rapp, the Lancastrian wields a mighty sword of observational poetry and simple strum and jangle that by turns sounds unfinished yet complete. Here's what I mean - there are a clutch of songs that barely reach two minutes and some that extend beyond three. The shorter ones, such as the charming 'The Apple Tree', which is perhaps the first (and only) example of scrump-step, just feel like they should, y'know, stick around for another sip and a proper warm by the fire. The same applies to 'A Trout' and the elegiac 'In The Willows'.
Of the fuller efforts, I'd have to doff my cap at Haywood for writing the album's closer, 'Made For The May' - it is utterly handsome, a folk-inspired dandy, a squire for all seasons and just a bit good. He does it again on 'Suspicious Farms', a title that conjures up a Midsomer Murders plot though thankfully, the music contains less in the way of murder and hammy acting and more in the way of harmonium and a gently eddying tale of sentinels, wild flowers and robbery amongst birds.
All of which will either have you running for the hills (hater) or for the repeat button (lover) - I'm in the second camp. I just wish there was a bit more to savour, as it's all over in under 25 minutes.