Label: Cherry Red Records
Release date: Feb. 5, 2021 (digital) / March 26, 2021 (vinyl, CD/DVD)
Production: Chris Braide
Album length: 63:30 min
Genre: Art Rock / Art Pop
Rating: 8.5/10
Downes Braide Association is a partnership between legendary keyboardist Geoff Downes (Yes, Asia, Wetton/Downes Icon, The Buggles) and singer-producer Chris Braide, and it’s been around since 2012. Besides being a seasoned producer, Braide is also a very skilled songwriter. He’s worked in the film industry, and he’s lent his songwriting talents, on top of his production chops, to pop acts like Sia, Lana Del Ray, David Guetta, Marc Almond (Soft Cell), Beyonce and even Britney Spears, among others. Downes, no stranger to pop music himself, is the better-known name in the world of rock ‘n’ roll. But the two do have a common thread: both worked with Trevor Horn. Downes in The Buggles, who were later joined up with Yes, and Braide in The Producers.
“Halcyon Hymns” is the fourth Downes Braide Association album. It’s an intriguing mix of Geoff Downes’ recognizable style and expression with the soft-toned, compositional and production touches of the highly talented Chris Braide. In other words, a combination that guarantees an appealing and distinctive musical story. The previous three releases put more emphasis on electronic figures in building the songs, so it’s no surprise that Downes and his keyboards usually ended up front and center. “Halcyon Hymns” swerves toward stringing together organic sonic textures, which means a guitar and a clearly defined organic rhythm section join the story.
The songwriting style is still deeply infatuated with the world of pop music, even though it comes across as both distinctive and multilayered. In that sense, the easiest label to stick on it is art rock. Those of you who think something classically symphonic-prog might flare up are on thin ice this time. The seeds for an adventure like that are definitely there (the closing section of King of the Sunset), but Braide and Downes stick to musically clear-cut, tightly structured songwriting the whole way through.
The album is skillfully sprinkled with a heap of finesse and detail, and Downes’ beloved vocoder is of course along for the ride. Still, it runs a touch too long. Especially given how artistically strong, polished and conceptually coherent the dynamic first part is, with the excellent opener Love Among The Ruins, before the yearning Warm Summer Sun wraps it up. The album clocks in at a solid hour of playing time, and the listening starts to wear you down in the last third, when the calmer numbers take over the spotlight and don’t have much new to say. It’s also hard to figure out why Remembrance has to be a full eleven minutes long, built on the repetition of three notes. Not even the narrations by Barney Ashton Bullock lift it out of the slightly tiresome listening. So on an album like this, the rock moves turn out to be a hugely welcome touch, like in the mellow Today, thanks to the guitar work of the excellent Dave Bainbridge (Iona), who has been helping out the legendary Strawbs since 2015.
The album has a pronounced atmospheric streak, and it effectively evokes and summons up mystique, with hints of both solemnity and melancholy. In that respect it feels very “British”, classic British (the seventies and up), but with a highly glossy, colorful, spacious and warm production, where Chris Braide’s phenomenal, at times almost angelic vocals take center stage. Downes, who has seen it all in the music business, once again fascinates with his flexibility and his superb knack for adapting his ideas when it comes to using sonic pastels.
The album features duets with Braide from the legendary Marc Almond (Soft Cell) and Big Big Train vocalist David Longdon. Longdon already appeared on the previous Downes Braide Association album “Skyscraper Souls” (2017), and this time he chips in with vocals on King of the Sunset, while Almond returns a favor to Braide, for his contribution to Almond’s solo career, on Warm Summer Sun.
In short: a very high-quality album that, compared to the previous three, brings a welcome swerve into the embrace of organic, classically conceived production warmth, even though it still stays very clearly within the figures of (art) pop. In that sort of musical setting, the rock sound of the guitar brings much-needed variety to what is otherwise an ambitiously drawn new chapter for the Downes and Braide duo, which might even be a tad bombastically overdone. But one thing is clear. At every moment of the album, the sheer high quality of musical perfectionism in the seamless symbiosis of two great masters wins out. That’s why you can fully, wholeheartedly enjoy the very mature, artistic character of such a refined merging of many sonic collages into a picturesque landscape of eclectic nature.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Love Among the Ruins
2. King of The Sunset
3. Your Heart Will Find the Way
4. Holding the Heavens
5. Beachcombers
6. Warm Summer Sun
7. Today
8. Hymn to Darkness
9. She’ll Be Riding Horses
10. Late Summer
11. Remembrance
12. Epilogue
Lineup:
Geoff Downes – keyboards
Chris Braide – vocals, guitar, keyboards
Guest musicians:
Ash Soen – drums
Andy Hodge – bass guitar
Dave Bainbridge – guitar
David Longdon – vocals on track no. 2
Marc Almond – vocals on track no. 6
Barney Ashton Bullock – narration on tracks no. 1 and 11
