Their first album since Mark Radcliffe vacated the drum seat (he’s still involved as a writer alongside frontman David Boardman) to be replaced by Emily Bailey and Tennessean Helen Walford took over from Zoe Blythe on vocals, folk-tinged Americana remains the default, opening with the Boardman/Radcliffe co-write ‘Seven Wonders’, a simple acoustic strummed song led by Gary O’Brien’s organ and Emily Doggett’s fiddle about falling in love (“Take me to new places/We’ll discover every day/That the future’s looking so bright/Like the petals of the rose”) with Walford on lead. Taken at a slightly slower pace but gradually building, Boardman and Walford duetting, ‘Giving It All’, a seemingly unlikely collaboration with former BBAC Chief Sports Writer Tom Fordyce, has a certain chiming countrified Coldplay feel to its theme about how unfulfilled ambitions can colour your views on life and your relationships (“Success and failure, they chase you around until you/Don’t know which way you wanted to go …I’m sleep walking backwards/Running out of time… I’m losing the battle and falling behind/But I’m giving it all”).
The lyrics by Radcliffe, quietly fingerpicked with steel and Walford on lead, swelling musically as it builds, ‘None Of Us’, one of two hovering around five minutes, is a personal response to news that left him contemplating mortality and the fragility of life (“None of us can see what lies over the hill/Where the deepest waters may be anything but still/Where the brightest lights will leave an afterburn/None of us can see when things will take a darker turn”) with the heartfelt refrain “I will not forget you, I know you’ll remember me/None of us will blank out what we passed this way to see/I will not forget you, on that we can agree/None of us will let fade what we passed this way to see”.
Rising from despondency, he picks the mood back up with the handclappy, organ-anchored ‘Hey! Come On’, a simple upbeat and positive pop song that encourages “listen to the music let it shake you down“. Keeping the tempo firing, sporting ‘Rumours’ era Fleetwood Mac colours, ‘Out Of Time’ marries strummed acoustic and circling electric guitar with organ and a driving drum beat with Walford singing about recognising opportunities to change direction in life rather than being fixated that things haven’t gone as planned (”Don’t be put off by the thoughts that might linger/Weigh the reward against the cost/Don’t hold so tight that it slips through your fingers”).
Piano and organ creating the mood, Radcliffe’s regular weekend journeys to Salford Quays were the lyrical inspiration for the slow swaying soulful ‘Who’s That Up There (With The Light On)’, a musing on who might be the person behind the single light on in a tower block office (“What are the thoughts that surround you/And often rob you of sleep?/What is clouding your mind?/What can you never forget?/What are the moments you cherish?/What have you lived to regret?”) and the generic observation that “We all look over our shoulders/Nobody’s conscience is clear/There are things you can leave behind/But some things that forever you’ll fear”.
One of the more straightforward country numbers with its harmonies and dobro guitar, ‘That Love We Have Tonight’ is about recognising and cherishing the love we find along the way, being grateful for those who provide their support (“Those days that I spent wondering just looking for a sign/Desperate for an answer I just had to bide my time /Like visions of Johanna you stand before me now/The clouds have gone, the rain has passed my future’s breaking out”) and acceptance that “Tomorrow isn’t promised we can only have today/As long as there’s a thread that sews our souls together tight/We know we’ll need that love we have tonight”.
The intro giving it a desert country feel, ‘The Lie Of The Land’ is a darker, more cinematic rework from ‘Deadbeat Lullabies’ about being content in your own little world and not feeling a need to break free, followed by the second five-minuter, the achingly sung fingerpicked title track, Boardman’s love letter to his native North East, in particular Northumberland and Newcastle, written from the perspective of someone who no longer lives there but yearns for the people and places they left behind (“when the Angel’s on the horizon, I know I’m home“), and referencing steel spans in the sky and the Central station line.
It ends with a cover, with, led by O’Brien’s piano and Walford on vocals, Dylan’s ‘ I Shall Be Released’ given a wearily Southern soul-country treatment that conjures The Band with female vocals, a perfect ending to an album that excitingly launches them down this new path of a consistently glorious career.
Mike Davies
Artists’ website: www.wearefinelines.com
‘Seven Wonders’ – official video:
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