These days it’s all meant to be about tracks, not albums; modern music listeners, it’s said, have pitifully short attention spans and skip flightily from one song to the next, like bees with ADHD in a blossoming orchard, without pausing to put each song in its proper context. But the third collection from Guillemots, the four-piece band who originated in Birmingham, is a proper, old-fashioned album: Walk the River has shape, structure, almost a narrative arc, taking the listener on an emotional journey that goes from despair to hope to joy to resolution.
At times, it’s almost bipolar in its determination to explore the dizzy heights and the desperate lows that can afflict a romantic such as the band’s singer and chief songwriter, Fyfe Dangerfield; his emotional honesty is almost painful to hear, an outpouring of heartbreak and joy. It could be horribly icky, especially when he sings “My heart is on the table, you can take it if you want it, it’s yours”, on “I Don’t Feel Amazing Now”; but actually it’s terribly affecting, thanks to its emotional authenticity, which shines through in the beauty of the melodies: this album delivers top tune after top tune, soaring and swooping refrains that lodge almost instantly in the memory.
It’s also, it must be said, a teensy bit more mainstream than their previous efforts, especially their debut, Through the Windowpane, which was weirder and more spacious and explored more fully the musical backgrounds of the group’s members (folk, jazz, metal), and made greater use of the double bass playing of Aristazabal Hawkes (this time round she seems to be mostly on electric bass, which is a pity: less thrummy).
But still: this is hardly an album of meat-and-potatoes rock; it’s big and rich and swirly and tingly and swooshy. Also, as it progresses, it ebbs and flows and soars and dives, which is why it deserves to be given proper attention from start to finish. And those of a particularly emotional disposition might need a hanky.
Find Walk the River on Amazon
Download Walk the River on iTunes
Buy tickets for Guillemots, playing "secret" shows from 18 April and festivals throughout the summer
Watch the video for "I Don't Feel Amazing Now"
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