Through The Trees begins with a sombre hum of multi-tracked vocals, before turning into a autumnal instrumental of descending guitar lines both acoustic and electric in amongst grimly optimistic ambience reminscent of The Twilight Sad. After that brief almost two minute ditty things are similarly lilting on Interrupt Me, guitars swirling around one another before Arran’s dry, mellow voice creeps in a little like Brian Eno amongst the instrumentation which mixes acoustic guitar amongst twitchy production on the drum track, that gradually builds into an almost folktronica sound.
All That I Can Do picks things up from there, its artificial drum line a nice, stunted contrast to the aching guitar chords. It shares a maudlin buoyancy with Ballboy and lyrically Arran touches on bittersweet sentiments with as much emotional relevance; ‘All that I can do is fall in love with you, for a short while.’ So it’s not much of a surprise to learn that Arran (real surname Southall) was born in Portrush, Northern Ireland but now resides in Edinburgh, Scotland as he music shares certain traits that seem familiar to that geography.
There’s a sweetness to the carefree tempo of Always About You, Arran’s voice lighter than on previous tracks, though the song loses some of its momentum about three minutes in with another minute left to go. Give & Take is a sombre ballad, Arran crooning a little like James Yorkston but over a backing closer to Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, what stands out the most though are Arran’s lyrics and the passion he manages to imbue them with, his voice is strong and different, sometimes glum and detached and at others barking bitterly. It Will Come whilst still decent feels cut from the same cloth as the preceding track and the two songs begin to blur into one another.
Daniel! is a wryly humourous ode to the three Daniels that Arran has known, it’s steeped with romance and nostalgia and a sugary synth line that sits snugly alongside the carefree guitar and chirpy drumbeat. But The Door loses the momentum again, it feels a tad repetitive and despite being one of the shortest songs on the record it seems to lumber along at a slow pace. The Wire gets things back on track, sure it fits the firmly established make up of all this record’s songs, and doesn’t find Arran experimenting too much with the limitations of his solo-DIY persona, but it’s a nice enough tune with warm backing vocals and a subtle fizz of synths amongst the standard guitar/drum machine make up.
Closing track You Could Have It So Much Better has a toe-tapping drum beat and simple optimistic lyrics that sit somewhere between honesty and mawkishness, but there is generally an effort on this record to be plain and true with the listener which, for a large part, Arran achieves and as a result his songs are both uniquely personal and touching and whilst occasionally the confines of his musical set-up may stifle the enjoyability of his ideas those ideas are strong enough that slightly fluffy production can’t mask them. This is a good record from a prolific and talented songwriter.
[Rating:3]
