Artist: Hawley, Richard
Label: Mute Records
Release: 2009
Runtime: 51.05
Rating: 4/5
Truelove’s Gutter is the sixth album from Richard Hawley, ex-foot soldier of British pop attraction Longpips and later Pulp fellow traveler, a musician, songwriter and producer who has long since outgrown the narrow confines of popular music by paving his own solo road. Truelove’s Gutter stays true to Hawley’s trademark folk-rock, a calm drowning in melancholic landscapes, though never before has it loomed with this much dark charge.
With Truelove’s Gutter, Richard Hawley carries on with his mission of serving up interesting tunes that are best described as scratching around a wide branch of alternative pop. The album doesn’t experiment with recruiting different genre forms; here and there you can catch the odd detour toward country, plus a few rock urges, but they’re only ever slotted in as filler for a strictly dictated flow of events, steered by the haunting presence of Richard Hawley’s voice. Truelove’s Gutter is a record of dark, ambient intensity, where Hawley’s icy voice leads a dance of heavy melancholy that fits wonderfully with the variety of accompanying props at every turn of the album.
For all its sorrow, which by the dictates of every prejudice attached to it clearly calls for monotony, Truelove’s Gutter boasts a surprisingly lively sonic image, constantly shifting through a whole range of nicely crafted arrangement shades. To build a full, deeply ambient-leaning soundscape, Hawley (justifiably) pins his hopes on orchestral arrangements, and understandably stays picky about where and how he uses them. While heavily instrumental-backed numbers like Open Up Your Door or Ashes On The Fire boldly draw on the sheer power of orchestrally arrayed string formations, For Your Lover Give Some Time, with its minimalist guitar sound, reaches more clearly into the most intimate spheres of the musician’s mysterious background. Remorse Code, thanks to a bold combination of both elements, shyly reveals an exceptional range of moods, which grows to an unexpected peak over the course of the excellent, heavily rock-inspired Soldier On.
Truelove’s Gutter doesn’t try too hard to please a wider audience, but stubbornly sticks to the take-it-or-leave-it principle as it weaves its own expressive thread. Which, in the end, is exactly as it should be, and a real rarity in today’s parade of pop-culture groupthink. Hawley remains inexhaustible in his teasing delivery of melancholic sighs, a master of his craft who has effectively crushed constant whining together with elements of listenability, and the fact alone that Truelove’s Gutter is an album that won’t necessarily make you think of suicide says plenty.
Lineup
Richard Hawley: vocals
Shez Sheridan: guitar
Jon Trier: keyboards, vibraphone
Colin Elliot: electric bass
Dean Beresford: drums
“The Red Skies” string section:
Donald Grant: violin
Helena Smart: violin
Catrin Morgan: violin
Emma Wragg: violin
Thea Spiers: violin
Kirsty Margan: violin
Felix Tanner: viola
Natalie Holt: viola
Lucy Pane: cello
Liz Hanks: cello
Richard Pryce: double bass
Production
Richard Hawley
Track list
1. As the Dawn Breaks
2. Open Up the Door
3. Ashes on the Fire
4. Remorse Code
5. Don’t Get Hung Up on Your Soul
6. Soldier On
7. For Your Lover, Give Some Time
8. Don’t You Cry
